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WAY-SIDE GLIMPSES, 



^0rtl; anb Snittt 



By LILLIAN FOSTER. 



NEW YORK ; 
RuDD & Carleton, 130 Grand Street, 

(bkooks building, oob. of BKOADWAY.) 
MDCCCLX. 

i 









^. ^^J^ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

LILLIAN FOSTEE. 

In tlie Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of 

New York. 



t: 



8THBE0TTPED BT 

T. B. Smith & SoK, 
\2 & M Beekmau-street 



fiitrtt^ntturg 



R. G. HoRTON, Esq. : — 

M^ Dear JSir : — 

Accustomed to appeal to you upon 
occasions when I am j)erplexed with difficulties, I 
ask at this juncture, Can there not be a book 
without a preface as well as a church without a 
bishop ? Besides, I do not know how to write a 
preface, and I also feel a shrinking modesty from 
addressing the public face to face. You know 
how these letters were written, and why they are 
published. You know, too, that life has been a 
sterner battle to me than usually falls to the lot 
of woman ; but you also know that I have never 
shrunk from its cares, or thrown upon others the 
responsibilities which belonged to myself. Left 
alone, to " struggle with outrageous fortune" and 
retain for myself and family a respectable position 
in society, I have employed my pen to attain what 
Agar so beautifully describes as neither poverty 
nor riches. To this end I have collected these 
scattered letters, written at different periods dur- 



IV INTRODUCTORY, 

ing the last few years, and mostly to the journal 
with Avhich you have been so long associated. I 
think the position and advantages I enjoyed at 
the time they were written, afforded me superior 
opportunities to observe all the phases of scenery 
and society at the locations of my sojourn, which 
I have endeavored to portray with vivacity, ac- 
curacy, and impartiality. 

I have hoped these communications would im- 
part both instruction and pleasing interest to the 
public, in relation to the various routes of travel, 
as well as the places of fashionable resort for art- 
ists, statesmen, and men of business, with their 
families, during the pleasant season of the year, 
thus furnishing those who design to journey in 
the United States — whether American or foreigner 
— a synopsis of pleasant routes with the rendez- 
vous of intelligent and refined travelers. 

My aim has been to embrace as much of useful 
information as practicable, and to render the let- 
ters familiar and entertaining. Literary superior- 
ity I do not claim for them ; but the information 
contained in the volume, and its low price, will, 
I trust, be inducements for readers to possess it. 

I can not too gratefully express ray acknowl- 
edgments to gentlemen and ladies all over the 
Union, and particularly at the South, for the kind- 



INTRODUCTOE Y. V 

ness and attention they have bestowed upon me. 
Particularly to the gentlemen of the j^ress am I 
indebted for numerous favors, and to none more 
than you, my dear Sir, whose sympathy and aid 
has ever been so generously given, and to whom 
I now take the liberty to dedicate these "Way- 
Side Glimpses ISTorth and South," as the only tes- 
timonial I have to offer you of my esteem and 
friendship. 

Very gratefully, 

And sincerely, yours, 

LILLIAN^ FOSTER. 
New York, Sept. 19, 1859. 



CONTENTS 



I. 

PAGE 

Sunday m New Tork, 13 



II. 

EuRAL Sights and Sounds in Dutchess County, 20 

III. 

Annual Exhibition op the Amenia Seminary. — ^Plea- 
sures OF Rural Lite, 24 

lY. 

Visit of Rev. Dr. "Wainwright. — Rev. Mr. Frissell. — 
The Old Stone Church at Dover. — A Charade, 29 

Y. 

The "Warm Weather. — An Amusing Incident. — The 
Beautiful Evening, 36 

YI. 

Life at Watering Places. — The Pequot House. — Our 
Boarders, 42 



VIU CONTENTS. 

YII. 

E AND 

CUT 47 



PAGE 

Notes of Notable People and Matters in Connegti- 



VIII. 

The Sound. — The Aborigines. — Pleasure Seekers. — 
Hon. John Cotton Smith, 54 



IX. 

Leave-Taking. — Revolutionary Reminiscences. — Fash- 
ion and Display. — The Norwich Steamers 60 



X. 

Niagara Falls. — The Suspension Bridge. — The Luna 
Bow. — The Clifton House, 66 



XI. 

Growth op Illinois. — Michigan Central Railroad. — 
The Chicago Breakwater. — The Tremont House. — 
Emigration, 70 



XII. 

Trip to Charleston. — The Voyage by Steamer. — The 
Charleston Hotel. — Slavery. — The Arsenal. — The 
Citadel Academy, 78 



XIII. 

Visit to Columbia. — Northern Aggressions. — Beauti- 
ful Weather. — Southern Railroads, 86 



CONTENTS IX 



/ XIY. 

\J PAGE 

Augusta. — The City Hall. — The Church of the Atone- 
ment. — ^Augusta Hotel, 90 



XT. 

En Route for Savannah.— A Southern Sunset. — Loss 
OP Baggage. — The Pulaski Monument, — A "Slave" 
Funeral, 99 



\ XYI. 
Columbus.-^The Legend op Lover's Leap, &c., Ill 



XVII. 

A Trip to St. Louis. — Detroit. — The Towns of Mich- 
igan. — Chicago. — ^Illinois. — Prairies. — St. Louis,. . . 119 

XYIII. 

Western Railroads. — The Hoosiers. — Filthy Cars. — 
Advice to Conductors. — Indiana. — Louisville. — Its 
Growth.— Politics. — Louisville Hotel, 129 

XIX. 

A Visit to Frankfort. — The State Cajitol. — The 
Cemetery. — The Military Monument. — Daniel 
Boone. — Governor Morehead,' 135 

XX. 

Steamboat Traveling. — Southern Scenery. — South- 
ern Hospitality. — Growth of New Orleans, 146 

1* 



X CONTENTS. 

XXI. 

PAGE 

The Saint Charles. — New Orleans in ■Winter, — A 
Fashionable Lady's Daily Eoutine.— Mrs. General 
Gaines. — The New Custom House. — ^Free Schools, 152 



/ 



XXII 



Down the Mississippi. — New Orleans. — A Bal 
Masque, IGl 

J XXIII. 
ViCKSBURG. — Mississippi Steamboats, 167 

XXIV. 

Memphis. — Its Banks and Bachelors. — The Ladies. 
— WoRSHAM House. — Waiting for a Boat. — Miss 
Murray. — Left. — Off, 1 74 

XXV. 

Nashville. — The State Capitol. — University op Nash- 
ville. — The Hume High School. — City Hotel,.... 180 

XXVI. 

Eaining Down at Night in New York. — The Saint 
Nicholas Hotel. — Its Extent and Magnificence,.. 193 

XXVII. 

Politics in Illinois. — Prospects op Chicago. — New 
Buildings, &(.* 200 



CO]STENTS. XI 

XXYIII. 

PAGE 

In New York Again.— Genin's Bazaar, 20t 



XXIX. 

Growth of Chicago. — Commerce. — Fashion, &c. — 
Nomination of Honorable R. S. Malony for Con- 
gress. — Speeches op Colonel Richardson and 
Colonel Carpenter. — The Fifth Avenue of Chi- 
cago, 212 



XXX. 

iLLLtfois Politics. — Mr. Douglas. — Mr. Lincoln. — 
Colonel Carpenter. — The Result of the Present 
Contest, 218 

XXXI. 

A Trip to the White Mountains. — The Flume 
House, 224 



XXXII. 

The Flume. — ^Tue Cascades. — The Old Man of the 
Mountains, 228 



XXXIII. 
Montreal. — The Victoria Tubular Bridge, 234 

XXXIV. 

Trip from Chicago. — Railroads. — Pennsylvania Cen- 
tral.— The Alleghanies.— Scenery. — The St. Nich- 
olas Hotel, -43 



I. 

Nkw Toek, July 1, 1853. 

Civilization furnishes few more interesting or 
fruitful phenomena than the Sabbath in a large 
city, especially one composed of a mixed population 
like ours — each nation and class preserving its own 
peculiarities of manner and amusement, which on 
Sunday alone have an opportunity of development 
and indulgence. In the country, Sunday is a 
season of man's absolute repose, especially to the 
muscle-straining and sweat-producing classes, while 
in the city it is the schemers and thinkers alone 
that rest and refresh their consciences by religious 
exercises ; while the great body of the hard-work- 
ing population — the bone and sinew of the com- 
munity — rush out, like children let loose from 
school, to enjoy a brief interval of excitement, and 
to inhale a few breaths of untainted air. Those 
whose days and hours are all their own, and who 
never by any possibility penetrate into the filthy 



14 ' SUNDAY IN NEW YORK. 

and noxious quarters of the city, where helotism 
swelters in its rags and dirt, half suffocated amid 
poisonous vapors, can form but a poor idea of the 
preciousness of a few hours of relaxation, change 
of scene and pure air, to the laboring classes. To 
them the city is one vast prison, in whose trenches 
and passages they work and dig, with the privilege 
of escape and respite one day in seven. To them, 
Sunday is not only morally, but physically, a Sab- 
bath ; and civilization is beginning to discover that 
all real melioration of the condition of mankind 
must commence at the material side of the ques- 
tion. There is, doubtless, earnest and true devo- 
tion in the unconscious gladness of the laboring 
man who, with his wife and family, on Sunday, 
escapes from the city's walls, and feels himself 
walking and breathing in the free air of the 
heavens, perfiimed with the breath of grove and 
field. The cheerfiil talk and happy laughter of 
these people are hymns and thanksgivings to the 
Creator, doubtless as acceptable as the richly-paid 
quartettes and nicely-modulated voluntaries, sand- 
wiched with stereotyped prayers and sermons, which 
ascend from innumerable costly and magnificently- 
appointed churches. 



SUNDAY IN NEW YORK. 15 

New York is admirably situated for the ac- 
commodation of its working classes with the 
facilities for getting out of town and into the 
country. Perhaps there is not another instance 
in the world where the inhabitants in the mid- 
dle of a city of six hundred thousand population 
can, in fifteen minutes, and at an expense of 
sixpence down to two cents, transport themselves 
literally into the country, surrounded by all the 
agreeable influences of woods and green fields, 
and soothed by that sense of silence and repose 
for which the heart of the citizen pines and his 
frame aches. If you would get a proper appre- 
ciation of the value set upon fresh air by those 
who get it but once a week, go to Hoboken on 
Sunday morning, and wander about its romantic 
retreats. At length, you will find yourself at 
the Elysian Eields — a beautiful spot, turfed with 
unbroken green, and shaded by majestic old trees, 
without a suspicion of under-brush. After drink- 
ing in the strength and rest lavishly imparted 
by the calm solitude of this lovely spot, and feel- 
ing as much renewed as Antaeus when he had 
kissed his mother earth, you can walk leisurely 
down the splendid graveled water terrace along 



16 SUNDAY IN NEW YORK. 

the banks of the river, listening to the sleepy 
murmur 

" Of the small ripple spUt upon the beach," 

and following with your eye the countless sails 
that, like a flock of gigantic white-winged crea- 
tures, glide through the far distance, with just 
sense of motion and life to give assurance that you 
are still in the actual world, but not sufficient t'^ 
disturb the current of your dreamy reveries. 
Away to the left, and northwardly as far as the 
eye can pierce, stretches the dark outline of the 
monster city, coiled along the edge of the water 
in gigantic folds — now, at this safe distance, silent 
and asleep for you. As you gaze upon the gloomy 
labyrinth from which you have for a moment es- 
caped, a sense of triumph and freedom comes 
over you that almost compensates for a week 
of toil. 

In the city itself, the Sabbath is not without its 
peculiarities and excitements. It is true that Wall 
street is as still and silent as if it had been seized 
with an ossification of its granite heart, and the 
footfall of the solitary pedestrian echoes startlingly, 
like Layard's, as he penetrated into the unburied 



SUNDAY IN NEW YORK. 17 

site of Nineveh. Not a token, not a reminiscence, 
of all the panting and perspiring thousands who all 
the week have run fiercely up and down this great 
stone cage, remains on wall or walk. The dens of 
the brokers — those spiders who weave their meshes 
of thin bank paper rags, even flimsier and more 
unsubstantial than the arachnean web — are all her- 
metically closed, as if they were the tombs of the 
victims who have there been slain and skinned. 
The "ponderous and marble jaws" of the innumer- 
able banks are also shut tight — and, indeed, the 
whole street, on Sunday, looks not unlike a thickly 
populated avenue in some old cemetery, with the 
Custom House and the Exchange towering up like 
two gigantic mausolea, and the tall spire of Trinity 
springing like an exhalation into the sky, as if to 
point the way the souls of the departed ought to 
have taken. 

But the churches, thickly planted like trees of 
promise in every quarter of the city, and the 
streets leading to them, present a totally different 
appearance. If, during the week, the stranger 
should be surprised at the intense activity and 
insane eagerness to make money which prevail 
among our business men, let him look at their 



18 SUNDAY IN N^W YORK. 

handsome wives and daughters as they sail out to 
church in full Sunday apparel, and he will won- 
der no longer. This vast, uninterrupted stream of 
twenty-five dollar bonnets, fifty dollar, silks, yard 
wide ribbons, embroidered shawls, velvet robes, and 
costly feathers, bespeaks an unparalleled extrava- 
gance in the families of the industrious and pros- 
perous many who make up the great body of the 
population of every large city. The expensive and 
ostentatious style of this immense class, both in 
their dress and manner of living, is one of the 
most striking characteristics of our country and 
our age. Nowhere else in the world can one 
tenth part of so great a number of expensively 
(we do not say well) dressed women be seen in 
the same time or compass, as in Broadway on a 
fine Sunday morning. When we encountered this 
brilliant procession, last Sunday, and remembered 
that money was worth two per cent, a month in 
Wall street, we could not help roughly estimating 
the enormous interest the husbands and fathers 
of New York bestow upon their wives and daugh- 
ters. 

Sunday evening is given up to the denizens of 
the kitchen and steward's room. From dark till 



SUNDAY IN NEW YORK. 19 

late into the night, the streets are filled with 
ruddy-cheeked and strong-armed chambermaids 
and house-servants, each with her ''cousin," or 
*'frind jist come over from the ould country," 
pacing proudly by her side. The habits of the 
drawing-room inevitably find their way into the 
lower departments of life, and the throng on Sun- 
day evening is even more gaudily bedizened than 
its forerunner of the morning. It is, also, doubt- 
less, far happier and more contented ; for the study 
of life in a great city indelibly fixes this lesson 
deeply in the judgment — mankind are happy in an 
inverse ratio to their capacity of enjoyment. 



II. 

plural ^x^\p aivir ^omtbs m ^nk)^tB$ ^omxi^. 

Wassaio House, Wassaic, July 4, 1853. 

I AM happy to escape the "glorious Fourth" 
in New York, and not be half crazed by the tu- 
mult of the city. Rest, silence, and the majesty 
of mountains, all about and towering above me ! 
What a contrast to the clatter, the dust and fiery 
rush of Broadway, with its two inch layer of dirt 
strewing the trampled sidewalk, and its hundreds 
of countermarching processions hurrying, driving, 
crushing madly through the streets ! Nothing 
strikes my ear now save the tender whispering of 
the young leaves and the running brook that leaps 
joyfully at my feet. I have just come in from a 
ramble, and certainly never have I visited more ad- 
mirably sited hills and mountains. They are spurs 
of the Green Mountains of Massachusetts and Ver- 
mont, running along the whole eastern boundary 
of Dutchess county and crossing to the Highlands. 
From one point, overlooking the city of Hudson 



21 

and Pouglikeepsie, can be seen distinctly in the 
distance the Cattskill Mountains. The grand 
far-sweeping landscape, together with the broad, 
majestic Hudson, lying thus in mysterious beauty 
beneath the soft blue light, seems like a great 
young heart, full of romantic dreams and glorious 
aspirations, on which the moonlight of first love is 
streaming. What of reality is yet crude and im- 
perfect, sinks in the distance beneath the soft light, 
like the rocks and rugged monsters of the deep be- 
neath the immortal grace of its undulating surface. 
Nothing but the vast line of beauty that pervades 
all nature, everywhere inclosing and marking out 
the ideal, is visible. All around, and in my own 
heart, is the peace, the serenity, the solemn splen- 
dor, of untamed, unmasked, unmaddened nature. 

You will doubtless accuse me of extravagance in 
these expressions ; but if you could stand with me 
amid the romantic and picturesque scenery I have 
been describing, or climb with me the green hills, 
turbaned with still greener forests, you would con- 
demn my page as weak and feeble to describe what 
we were enjoying. I have never seen wild mount- 
ain scenery more happily blended. 

The annual emigration from the metropolis to 



22 RURAL SIGHTS AND SOUNDS 

the innumerable watering places, so called, spread 
over the face of the country and all along shore, is 
one of the most curious, comical, characteristic, and 
altogether remarkable phenomena which the society 
of the New World has produced. Of late years, 
the custom, like all other metropolitan fashions, has 
been imitated in a small way by other cities on the 
Atlantic coast, whose convulsive efforts at estab- 
lishing grand-sounding "watering-places" are as 
ludicrous as their comforts and conveniences are 
pitiable. The good old-fashioned quietude and re- 
freshing serenity of many small and pleasant places, 
situated in shady portions of the country, lying at 
convenient distances from the metropolis, are over- 
looked and forgotten in the spasmodic efforts to 
make a conspicuous display at a petty watering 
place. Here, in this shady retreat, we find rest 
and repose — inhale a pure, life-giving atmosphere 
from the mountains, without the great struggle for 
preeminence, the pleasureless and exhausting dis- 
sipations which reign at our summer watering 
places. 

The Wassaic House is new, and weU conducted 
by Mr. Atkins and his amiable wife, who take great 
pains to render the stay of their guests in every 



m DUTCHESS COUNTY. 23 

way pleasant. The rooms are large, well venti- 
lated and furnished, and we take pleasure in rec- 
ommending the house to all those who wish quiet 
and substantial comfort at a moderate expense. It 
is on the Harlem railroad, which brings you here 
in two hours from New York, and is just the place 
in which to spend the summer months happily and 
contentedly. 

The Harlem, by the way, is one of the best 
managed roads in the United States, and has had 
fewer accidents than many others. The conductors 
are polite, gentlemanly men, who always study the 
comfort and safety of their passengers. It is the 
pleasantest as well as the safest route to go any- 
where north, either to Lebanon or Saratoga 
Springs. 



III. 

"^kmrns of gurai fife. 

Wassaio House, Wassaic, July 23, 1858. 

On Wednesday came off the annual exhibition 
of the Amenia Seminary — three miles from here. 
It is a Methodist institution, but, I understand, not 
a sectarian one. John W. Beech is the principal, 
and also a Methodist clergyman, who holds serv- 
ice every Sunday afternoon in the chapel connected 
with the seminary. He is young, possesses an in- 
teresting face, and, from appearance, I should sup- 
pose him a man of much intellect. The seminary 
consists of three buildings, beautifully located upon 
a gentle eminence, and surrounded by prettily laid 
out grounds, ornamented with flowers and fine old 
shade trees. The institution is in a flourishing 
condition, averaging from one hundred and twenty 
to one hundred and fifty pupils. The examination 
did much credit to the school ; the compositions 
were good, and one of the dialogues was full of 



AMENIA SEMINARY. 25 

animation and evinced considerable talent. The 
onlj thing that did not please us was the elocution. 
The modulation was very imperfect. Whenever 
one speaks or writes, he is supposed, as a rational 
being, to have some end in view, either to inform, 
or to amuse, or to persuade, or in some way or 
other to influence his fellow-creatures. Reading 
without modulation, no effect can be produced. At 
the exhibition we observed that the reading was 
too much on one key, and that often pitched too 
high. Young speakers are apt to think more of 
what they say than how they say it — which is a 
fault. Any composition, however good, if not ar- 
tistically read, loses half its force and meaning, and 
is discordant to the ear. Transition is as essential 
in speaking as in singing. The passing from one 
subject to another in reading is the same as a 
change of key in music, and should be studied 
and taught with as much care. Pleasing ideas 
can hardly be transmitted to the mind by means 
of harsh and disagreeable sounds. 

At the present day, nothing is more needed than 
a practical treatise upon the voice, which is sus- 
ceptible of a high state of cultivation in speaking 
as in suiging. If some learned professor would 



26 RURAL LIFE. 

accomplish the task, he would distinguish himself 
as the founder of eloquence, and confer a blessing 
upon mankind. 

Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, has written and pub- 
lished a most scientific work upon the voice ; but it 
is not a practical one. The method is nearly the 
same as that of music, and can only be applied by 
a thorough musician. 

All is as still as Sunday morning number one 
in Eden, and while the citizens I have left behind 
are languid and suffocated with heat reflected from 
brick wall and pavement, here I sit absolutely filled 
with silence, and the sense of absolute repose and 
quiet, in a cool, delicious atmosphere, looking out 
of the window of my little room upon a green val- 
ley, dotted over vy^ith still greener hills, and watch- 
ing the soft white clouds upon the blue sky, that 
ever and anon cast their shadows as if to make the 
picture more fresh and beautiful. 

In the leafy months, the season of birds and 
flowers, I would wish to see all, weary and worn by 
metropolitan life, escape to quiet retreats and re- 
cover under their balmy and invigoratmg influence. 
I have just returned from the city, where I passed 
two or three days, and never before have I felt all 



RURAL LIFE. 27 

the advantages of a summer country life, where we 
are not exposed incessantly to noxious exhalations. 
impure air, and extreme heat. 

At this moment our beautiful valley is perfectly 
lighted up by the full moon, whose orbed sphere, 
air-poised above a coliseum of terraced mountains, 
flushed and palpitating with all unimaginable riches 
of light and shade, seems descending slowly to the 
lovely earth, drawn by some sweet and irresisti- 
ble attraction — the orbs of heaven, the silence, the 
shadows, are steeped in poetry. Where moonlight 
falls, what heart would not be softened, and mind 
elevated, amid the loveliness of night's deepest and 
stillest hours ? 

We are getting on charmingly here. New arri- 
vals every day. To-night we have a soiree, and 
our little folks are getting up a grand hop for next 
week, under the inspection of mamma and papa, 
and expect all the gay ones of the neighborhood to 
assist. 

You can see by the busy and contented appear- 
ance of Mr. Atkins, as he hastens from parlor to 
parlor, and over his establishment, listening as if 
by instinct, and giving his orders with promptness 
and decision, that the season has fairly commenced, 



28 RURAL LIFE. 

and a golden time in perspective. The scene is 
a fitting contrast to the solemnity and beauty 
without, and eye and heart turn from one to 
the other -with a delicious alternation of sweet 
content. 



IV 



Wassaic, "Wassaio IIouse, August 5, 1853. 

We have been favored with the company of Dr. 
Wainwrightj the right reverend bishop of the dio- 
cese. He made this picturesque spot his resting 
place while engaged in some of his diocesan visita- 
tions in this region of country. He expressed him- 
self highly delighted with the union of fertility and 
beauty for which this section of eastern Dutchess 
has been so long and justly distinguished — a much 
more picturesque spot than strangers have any idea 
of from merely passing through it. The Wassaic 
Creek is small, but a beautiful stream, thickly 
wooded, and of charmingly variegated and undu- 
lating outline, here and there broken by golden 
fields of wheat, or a vista between the forest hill, 
where the still more golden light streams through. 

Last Sunday, heard a good sermon from the 



30 REV. MR. FRISSELL. 

-Rev. Mr. Frissell, the Presbyterian clergyman at 
South Amenia, where most of the inmates of the 
Wassaic House attend church. Mr. Frissel has a 
fine person, an impressive but pleasing presence, 
a good voice, which he uses artistically, and is an 
eloquent preacher. This field of public speaking 
has its advantages and disadvantages. It has 
some advantages peculiar to itself. The dignity 
and importance of its subject must be acknowl- 
edged superior to any other. But there are pe- 
culiar difiiculties that attend the eloquence of the 
pulpit. His subjects of discourse are, in them- 
selves, noble and important ; but they are subjects 
trite and familiar. They have, for ages, employed 
so many speakers and so many pens; the public 
ear is so much accustomed to them that it requires 
more than *an ordinary power of genius to fix at- 
tention. Nothing is more difficult in art than to 
bestow on what is common the grace of novelty. 
The merit of it lies Avholly in the execution ; not 
in giving any information that is new, not in con- 
vincing men of what they do not believe, but in 
dressing truths which they know, and of which 
they w^ere before convinced, in such colors as most 
forcibly affect their imaginations and hearts. 



THE OLD STONE CHURCH. 81 

The end of all preaching is to persuade men to 
become good. Every sermon, therefore, should be 
a persuasive oration. The chief characteristics of 
the eloquence suited to the pulpit, distinguished 
from other kinds of public speaking, are gravity 
and warmth. In the Kev. Mr. Frissel, it seems to 
me that these two most important characteristics 
are happily united, forming that character of 
preaching which the French call unction, the af- 
fecting, penetrating, interesting manner, flowing 
from a strong sensibility of heart in the preacher, 
to the importance of those truths which he deliv- 
ers, and an earnest desire that they may make a 
full impression on the hearts of his hearers. 

I have paid a visit to what is called the ''old 
stone church" at Dover. It is not an antiquated 
church (as the name would signify), formed by hu- 
man hands, and fallen to decay ; but a phenomenon 
of nature. Our drive was a charming one — follow- 
ing the creek and winding among hills that seem 
nature's favored children ; anon coming to neat- 
looking farm houses, nestled so securely as if to 
distract the mind for a moment from the beautiful 
landscapes of nature seen on every side. 

The place of destination was reached at last, and 



32 THE OLD STONE CHURCH. 

the rewarding sight awaited us. I was led into 
church, not to listen to a sermon, but the sound of 
many waters. The rock which forms this curious 
phenomenon in nature is a hundred and fifty or two 
hundred feet in height, the aperture from fifty to 
seventy-five feet in width, and at the top almost as 
elaborately arched as if wrought by an architect 
The water falls at the extreme end from seventy 
five to a hundred feet, but being broken in severa. 
places the height of the greatest fall is not more 
than forty feet. 

It is not easy to describe in words the precise 
impression which grand and sublime objects make 
upon us when vre behold them ; but every one has 
a conception of it. It produces a sort of internal 
elevation and expansion ; it raises the mind much 
above its ordinary state, and fills it with a degree 
of wonder, awe, and astonishment, which it can not 
express. 

This wonder has long been visited by strangers, 
and will continue to be ; and I would suggest that 
artificial steps be placed beside the falls, so that 
visitors may ascend to the top, and look down upon 
its excessive grandeur, which would heighten its 
sublimity. 



A CHARADE. 33 

The Wassaic House is fast filling up to overflow- 
ing, and our agreeable host, Mr. Atkins, is doing 
every thing that can be done in the way of drives 
and getting up amusements to make the time pass 
away pleasantly ; for which we propose a vote of 
thanks. His table is excellent and abundant, and 
all those who give him a call will be sure to come 
again. Among the recent arrivals, we have Ham- 
ilton Robinson, Esq., and family, of New York; 
William B. Torrey, Esq., and family, of Brook- 
lyn, whose pretty and accomplished wife does 
much in aiding and directing our amusements, 
being one of the finest musicians in this country ; 
Mrs. Hall and daughters, and Miss Lyne, of 
Brooklyn; Miss Patterson and brother, Philadel- 
phia; Mr. Talmage Patterson, and Adriance Tal- 
mage, New York. 

This evening we have had a charade — the word 
selected was courtship. The first scene was a 
representation of Queen Victoria's drawing room. 
The next scene, a ship bound for California, named 
Wassaic. The closing scene, Yankee courtship. 
The whole passed off with eclat, and did much 
credit to those engaged in it. Queen Victoria, 
Miss Patterson, attired in white robe and train, 

•2* 



34 A CHARADE. 

ornamented with white flowers. Princess Adelaide 
of Hoenlohe, Miss M. Andrews, New York ; dress, 
blue brocade and train. Duchess of Kent, Miss 
A. Heath, New York; dress, green and crimson 
brocade. Duchess of Sutherland, Miss Talmage, 
Brooklyn ; dress, green tissue. Duchess of Buck- 
ingham, Miss Foster, New York ; dress, blue glace 
silk and train. Duchess of Cumberland, Miss M. 
Heath, New York : dress, pink silk, trimmed with 
black lace. Ladj Flora Hastings, Miss E. Heath, 
New York ; dress, blue silk. Prince Albert, E. 
Patterson, New York. Prince of Wales, Master 
Torrejj Brooklyn. Lord Chamberlain, A. Tal- 
mage, New York. Duke of Cumberland, T. Pat- 
terson, New York. 

After the charade, the folding doors were thrown 
open, and supper announced, provided by Mr. At- 
kins in his best style, and gave great satisfaction 
to all. The company was ushered in by the Grand 
Master of Ceremonies, G. Andrews, Esq., of New 
York. At supper, the health of the Queen was 
drank and that of Prince Albert. The health of 
N. Gridley, Esq., was proposed, owner of the Was- 
saic House, to which he responded. He rose and 
said : ''I feel highly complimented with the cour- 



A CHABADE. 35 

tesy paid me this evening, and not the less so com- 
ing from royal lips. In our democratic country, 
court scenes are but seldom represented, and 
especially in this quiet and primitive section ; 
but I assure this royal assembly of beauty and 
talent that the novelty is eminently appreciated 
and very acceptable." (Applause.) 

The health of Mr. and Mrs. Atkins was proposed. 
Mr. Atkins rose and said: "I am truly gratified 
to find that I am favored with guests possessing 
merit and genius of no common order ; and to 
those ladies and gentlemen who have been kind 
enough to offer this amusement for the benefit of 
the company, sincere gratitude." (Applause.) 

The company retired, much gratified with the 
entertainment, amidst music and applause. 



Wassaic, Wassaic House, August 22, 1S53, 

Thanks to the attractions and hospitalities of 
the Wassaic House that I was not in that salaman- 
der safe, New York, to be parboiled and suffocated 
by the unusual and terrific heat which visited the 
city last week. The number of deaths from co?ip 
de soliel was truly lamentable. The poor labor- 
ers — the bone and sinew of the community — whose 
days and hours are not all their own, who seldom, 
if ever, inhale a breath of untainted air ; but toil, 
with hod on shoulder filled with brick and mortar, 
for a scanty sustenance — climbing the ladder to the 
topmost story of buildings for the rich who know 
no want — exposed to rays of heat that are so soon 
to consume the poor man's life, leaving dependent 
his already ill clad and fed family in despair. 
What a picture ! Could not the rich builder give 



AX AMUSIXG INCIDENT. 37 

the employee a few hours' recess in the middle of 
the day in extreme hot weather without curtailing 
his wages, which he can not afford to dispense 
with ? That would be humane and charitable, and 
save many lives and much misery, and make the 
employer happier if not richer for the good he had 
done. 

The only exciting event we have had this week 
was on the occasion of the nervous lady declaring, 
in a fit of dyspepsia, that she must have a drive. 
The gallant Mr. P., of Philadelphia, who, by the 
way, is a great favorite, beiQg over-civil and com- 
plimentary to the ladies, immediately proclaimed if 
there was a vehicle to be had, it would give him 
great pleasure to accompany her ; to which she 
smiled, simpered and bowed her thanks. Mr. P. 
repaired to Mr. Atkins, but returned in a few min- 
utes, with feigned disappointment depicted in every 
feature, saying that every mode of conveyance was 
out, and that they would be under the necessity of 
waiting for the express train cars, which would con- 
vey them to any point between that and Albany. 
The lady indignantly declared that she could not 
bear the horrid cars ; that her health was so deli- 
cate — at the same moment assuming a sweet smile, 



38 AN AMUSING INCIDENT. 

looking at Mr. P., saying, in the blandest tone, that 
nothing but a drive and his agreeable company 
would restore her. Mr. P., like all very young and 
very old gentlemen, quite attentive, went out to ex- 
plore, and after a two hours' search, returned with 
a horse and wagon. The nag was rather long and 
slender — something of the eel style, and traveled 
very much as an eel swims. The wagon was in 
keeping, with a very long, narrow box, the- seat 
quite in front, barely room for the feet a little 
cramped. The buffalo robe was placed upon the 
seat ; madam assisted in, Mr. P. seating himself on 
her right ; she being in a charming sweet temper, 
invited Master A. to take a drive with them. He 
accepted ; but there being no seat for him, she or- 
dered a chair. It was brought and placed in the 
back of the wagon. Master A. took his seat, look- 
ing like a living statue, upon a very high pedestal 
clinging for support. They drove off amid good 
wishes and the waving of handkerchiefs. The road 
•being good, all passed pleasantly, with the single 
exception of the horse being a little restive, which 
was the subject of many amusing remarks. After 
an hour's drive, the lady forgot her age and dys- 
pepsia, and chatted, lisped, and smiled, expressing 



AN AMUSING INCIDENT. 89 

herself most extravagantly about the scenery, say- 
ing that was sublime and compared with the Alps, 
the other was grand and reminded her of the Rhine 
— that was beautiful and very much like her own 
little town. Mr. P. was unusually brilliant and 
witty, quoting from Shakespeare and Byron. Mas- 
ter A. listened with much attention, remarking oc- 
casionally that his seat was too high, and that he 
felt a little wearied with his long reach, clinging 
to the back of the seat. 

All things combined, the drive seemed to prom- 
ise to be a green spot in their memories. " But a 
change came o'er the spirit of their dreams." Just 
as they were on the borders of Connecticut, and 
ascended a hill, the horse sheered off, and, at the 
same time, giving a spring, and a very comical 
twist of the body. Master A., chair and all, were 
sent over the back of the wagon, ho alighting di- 
rectly on the top of his head. Madam, witnessing 
the accident, modulated from the sweetest of lisps 
to the most unearthly of screeches, much to the 
alarm of a gentleman who was riding a few rods 
forward of them, but not seeing the accident sup- 
posed the lady to be in hysterics. He was soon by 
her side. Discovering the cause of alarm, he raised 



40 AN AMUSING INCIDENT. 

Master A., who looked a little pale and somewhat 
dusty, the lady reiterating the whole time that his 
neck was broken, notwithstanding he held up his 
head as straight as a corporal in a June training. 
After the nerves of the lady were a little composed, 
and Master A. had given several turns of the head 
to reassure all that his neck was yet sound, he was 
put into the seat between madam and Mr. P., who 
resumed the ribbons, humming, by the way, airs 
from "Robert le Diable." Master A. uttered a 
few groans, saying he wished he had stayed at 
home. Madam sighed ; but all arrived, without 
further accident, in time for tea, when mirth and 
sadness, heads and hearts, were forgotten over a 
cup of Mrs. Atkins's best black tea. 

Yesterday we had one of the heaviest showers, 
accompanied by thunder and lightning,* I have ever 
witnessed, which, by the way, has been an almost 
daily occurrence this week, much to the discomfit- 
ure of several parties who had gone out for a drive. 
About one o'clock this morning the wind changed 
to the north, and the rest of the night it howled a 
most mournful dirge as if singing the requiem of 
the departed summer. From the atmosphere now 
it seems it was not all in vain, for the soul of sum- 



THE BEAUTIFUL EVENING. 41 

mer has departed, and to-day we are shivering in 
our shawls. 

Last night, soon after the shower, the fair, 
chaste moon, just rounding into the full outline 
of her most dazzling beauty, drawing with silver 
fingers the filmy tracery of the clouds about her 
as a robe of loveliness, darted the radiance of her 
smiles upon them until they beamed with all the 
separate yet harmonious colorings of crystallized 
light. It was like the dreams of youth painted by 
the prism of hope. All over the eastejn heavens 
sailed graceful clouds of orange and silver, like 
troops of spirits bearing gigantic wreaths where- 
with to crown their bride-mistress, while the bright 
goddess herself, flushed as when she stooped to kiss 
Endymion, swam amid a celestial halo of many- 
colored splendors. The thousands of admiring and 
rapt faces which had been mutely upturned to 
heaven to witness the magnificent scene, sought 
their pillows and their dreams—and the noiseless 
universe went on its way. 



VI. 

Pequot House, New London, August 28, 1S54. 

The philosophy of life at a fashionable water- 
ing place is something not yet much studied not 
properly understood m our democratic country. It 
is here that the revel'se of the medal of life ap- 
pears ; and instead of every thing being controlled 
by man, the entire government of the affairs of the 
community is in the hands of the women. The 
prettiest and boldest woman is Sultana, whose 
lightest smile and faintest nod is unquestioned and 
irresistible law; while those of less means and 
fewer attractions, are Mayor, Aldermen and Com- 
mon Council, who pass their time in eating, sleep- 
ing, dressing and undressing, and are continually 
hard at work trying to be idle with -a good grace. 
In such a government as this men are nobodies ; the 
muslins and laces of Stewart's, so beautifully trans- 



LIFE AT WATERING PLACES. 43 

parent, are emblazonry of the royal standard, whicli 
every good citizen feels himself bound to honor, to 
uphold ; coats are but quaint ornaments for the un- 
considered. 

In this brilliant little kingdom of New London, 
therefore, we have a fair opportunity of judging 
how far the ''delicate creatures" are deserving of 
consideration in matters of government and State 
policy which a portion of the sex so pertinaciously 
claim. But, alas! the "good time coming," when 
women shall rule, and men roast, promises to be 
only a change instead of an amelioration. Our lit- 
tle oligarchy is already cut up into as many rival 
cliques and factions as the political parties of this 
country. I have come to the conclusion that it 
is injudicious for women to wish to wield the 
scepter, except in kingdoms like this. Let them 
be faithful and patriotic, without encroaching upon 
the province of the other sex — waste their time, 
and bore their friends by writing and lecturing 
upon the equality of the sexes, and what they 
call ''woman's rights" — leave political and finan- 
cial topics. State policy, and the struggle of 
war to abler heads, stronger arms, and sterner 
hearts. 



44 THE PEQUOT HOUSE. 

The Pequot House has not been fuller, nor 
more fashionable this season, than at the pres- 
ent time. It will not close until the 1st of 
October. I understand a great dress ball is 
to come off next month. We have innumerable 
numbers of celebrities, great and small, of all 
ages, sizes, and conditions, continually arriving 
at and departing from this delightful place. Mr. 
Mather, our munificent landlord, has engaged 
for our pleasure and amusement two harpists 
and a violinist, who discourse most heart-stirring 
music in the hall during the hours of dinner 
and evening, embalming the atmosphere and all 
around with those charming airs, selected from 
the most popular operas, until the senses are 
bathed and heart rapt as in a delicious dream. 
There is something intoxicating and fascinat- 
ing in the sound of music — the little ones skip 
about like inspired fairies, and old ones uncon- 
sciously look charming. It is truly the lan- 
guage of the heart. They played the finale of 
"Lucia" in a style to recall by-past days, when 
Benedetti sang and acted it, in such a manner 
as to hold his hearers breathless and spell-bound 
with delight. Poor Benedetti ! that he should 



OUR BOARDERS. 45 

have lost the voice that would have charmed ahd 
astonished the world and made a fortune for him- 
self 

At this moment I see from my window, on the 

balcony, Miss D — , of Norwich, looking very 

sweetly in that pink dress, and Mr. M , of 

Middletown. I think there is no sentiment — they 
look too happy and too well satisfied with them- 
selves for that. There goes the distingue Mr. 

H , of New York, who was promenading last 

evening with the stylish and pleasing Miss C. 

P , of New York. The Misses G s, of 

New York, are very pretty girls, and dress in 

exquisite ta&te. Mrs. P 1, of New York, 

is an intelligent and charming woman, and her 

daughter a sweet and graceful girl. Miss H , 

of East Haddam, is also very pretty. She has 
light and laughing eyes, sunny brown hair, and 
faultless mouth. Among the recent arrivals, I 

notice one very beautiful. Miss H ff, of 

Middletown, daughter of Captain H . Mr. 

J , who has just returned from abroad, 

dances well, and would be quite fascinating if 
he did not embalm himself so sacredly in that 
comfortable looking gray coat of his. Pray omit 



46 OUR BOARDERS. 

it in the dance for a black one of less dimen- 
sions. 

The first rain we have had here in a month fell 
last night; still the weather here has not been op- 
pressive, but cool and delightful. 



VII. 

'^ottB of ItotaWe ^wplc Hitb ^nttzxs in €Dmxtttk\xt 

Peqtjot House, New London, August 17, 1854. 

How changed the whole scene since the young, 
ambitious Winthrop struggled through the wilder- 
ness from Saybrook, some two hundred years ago, 
in search of a place to found a town. How his 
heart would swell with delight if he could look 
down with earthly feelings and survey the fair spot 
and town that he hewed out and founded in the 
wilderness. The old town, burnt by Arnold, could 
boast of very little elegance ; the houses were old, 
tottering on the verge of decay, and those that re- 
placed them, built by an impoverished people, could 
not boast, with few exceptions, of elegaiice, taste, 
or neatness. The city now contains ten structures 
for public worship, two of them new and elegant, 
in the Gothic style of architecture ; a custom 
house and county prison, both of granite ; several 
manufacturing establishments, two of which employ 



48 NOTES OF NOTABLE PEOPLE 

engines of great power and several hundred men ; 
several blocks of stately brick buildings, in one of 
which is a spacious hall for public exhibitions ; and 
many elegant private mansions. 

John Winthrop, Jr., called the younger, the 
founder of New London, and chosen governor of 
the colony, was educated at the University of Dub- 
lin. In 1627, when twenty-one years of age, he 
was in the service of the unfortunate Duke of 
Buckingham, in the fruitless attempt to assist the 
Protestants of Rochelle, in France. John Win- 
throp, his father, was the leader of that second 
Puritan emigration from England which settled 
the colony of Massachusetts, and he was chosen 
governor of that colony. The family seat of the 
Winthrops in England was at Groton, in Suffolk. 
Hence the name Groton bestowed on those lands 
east of the river Thames, which were first included 
in New London, and where stands Groton Monu- 
ment overlooking the harbor, and forming an im- 
pressive feature of the place. Under its shadow 
lie the ruins of old Fort Griswold, from whose 
battlements a fine view is obtained of the town 
and the river. From the summit of the monu- 
ment, the prospect to the south of the Sound, its 



AND MATTERS IN CONNECTICUT. 49 

coasts and its islands, is absolutely peerless and 
magnificent. In the forefront of the town stands 
Fort Trumbull, a fine specimen of mural architec- 
ture, complete in design and finish, massive, new, 
..and in perfect order. 

Dear reader, have you ever visited this delight- 
ful of all delightful places of summer res-ort, the 
Pequot House ? In wandering about the country, 
as I have done from Washington to the watering 
places, and wherever beauty and fashion most do 
congregate, I assure you I have never before seen 
such a blending of attraction, enjoyment, and com- 
fort. The house is new and spacious, handsomely 
furnished, a fine dining saloon, tables profusely 
furnished with all the luxuries of the season, and 
served in perfect order and elegance. Mr. IMather, 
our landlord, and his clerk, Mr. Lyon, are well- 
bred, gentlemenly men, who anticipate the wants 
of their guests, and that is unusual in our demo- 
cratic country. Another attractive feature is, the 
hotel has many attached cottages, beautifully fitted 
up, containing drawing rooms, a number of bed- 
chambers, and all the conveniences of a household, 
suitable for a family or a party. I have been here 

some time, and I have not yet heard the first 
3 



50 NOTES OF NOTABLE PEOPLE 

murmur of dissatisfaction from a guest, but many 
eulogies upon the superior accommodations of the 
house. The bathing, walks, and drives, are fine; 
and lest I degenerate into an absolute puff, I will 
say no more, concluding by simply inviting you 
to call at the Pequot House, and see if I do not 
speak the truth, when I say it is unequaled, in 
all respects, by most of the watering places in the 
Union. 

There has not as yet been any "reigning belle" 
of the present season elected. The honors seem to 
be pretty equally divided, although we have many 
pretty faces and some queenly beauties. Among 
the guests, we have the queenly and dignified 
Mrs. Daniel Webster, and her pretty friend. Miss 
Canon, who are located for the season. Jacob 
LeRoy and family. New York; and Hon. J. S. 
Wendell, Hon. J. Pringle Jones and family, Penn- 
sylvania ; Hon. H. J. Dickey and family, Chicago ; 
Mayor Skinner, the munificent and popular mu- 
nicipal prince of New Haven. Their municipal 
affairs are something to deserve the name in such 
hands. He displays, in his manners and inter- 
course with others, all that sua,vity and polished 
dignity which constitute the high-bred gentleman. 



AND MATTERS IN CONNECTICUT. 51 

Governor Dalton and family, New Haven ; and 
Professor Bears, Rev. A. L. Stone, Eoston; Rev. 
Dr. Broadhead, New York; Rev. R. W. Sealy, 
Springfield, Massachusetts ; and many others 
equally distinguished. 

Bowling is the fashionable anti-dySpeptic regi- 
men at New London. I would suggest billiards, it 
being a more graceful game. However, bowling, 
and robes that sweep the alleys, and have conse- 
quently to be held daintily back with one hand, 
while the other launches the fatal ball upon its 
career, are all the rage. There are duller sights, I 
assure you, than an animated bowling match be- 
tween such lustrous beauties as the spirituelle Mrs. 
L. R , the queenly Mrs. J , and the grace- 
ful Miss . 

I look out of the window of my little dormitory 
upon a magnificent park. Along the walks leap 
groups of lovely and laughing children, arrayed 
in all a mother's pride condensed into the quaint- 
est and most picturesque costumes that ever a 
fairy milliner imagined, while within the deep 
shade of the portico that lines the inner court of 
the beautiful domain, saunter, with maddening 
pace, the owners of magnetic eyes and graceful 



52 NOTES OP NOTABLE PEOPLE 

forms, superb in the air of indifference with 
which they accept the homage of the gentlemen 
who attend upon them as assiduously as a toady 
upon his patron, or a new author upon a lit- 
erary big-bug. It is lull of the day — the in- 
terval between the morning walk and dinner 
— and the majority of the beautiful creatures, 
assembled in the great caravansera of fash- 
ionabledom, are deeply immersed in the occult 
mysteries of the toilet, although a few of 
the freshest and loveliest, with a beautiful dis- 
dain of all dress and preparation, to which, 
a few seasons hence, they will thankfully and 
reverently resort, have escaped betimes from 
their narrow bedroom, and hurried out for 
a walk and a rendezvous upon the bal- 
cony. 

The after dinner drive is the pleasantest and 
most rational portion of the day, and is really 
in every way delightful and refreshing. Then 
come tea and tattle, and the grand military re- 
view and parade of the evening, when beauty's 
regiment, divided into squadrons and platoons, 
and officered by men in black, marches in sweep- 
ing pace up and down the long piazza. The 



AND MATTERS IN CONNECTICUT. 53 

hop ends the ostensible and regular performances 
of the day — which taper off into scandals and 
suppers, moonlight rambles and sofa lounges, 
until all subsides into midnight, and New Lon- 
don sleeps. 



VIII. 

Peqttot Hoitse, New London, September 14, 1857. 

What a lovely day ! The air is spicy and fra- 
grant as if a cool breeze from the Green Mountains 
had just been melted into it. The water is spark-" 
ling with sunbeams whose surface ever presents to 
the eye a changeful scene. Barges and boats whose 
oars dip liquid silver; the smack with its slant 
sheet bearing up before the wind ; schooners built 
for use, and deep with freight, display only ease 
and grace in form and motion ; lines of steamers, 
making neighborhood of distance, are objects which 
give a pleasing variety to the surface of the Sound, 
whose waters I am at this moment overlooking from 
my window. 

I have just returned from a day's visit to the 
city, and never was Paradise more welcome to the 
weary feet of stumbling and travel-stained Christian 



THE ABORIGINES. 55 

pilgrim, than this lovelj retreat to me. This month 
23romises to be the most delightful one here. One 
can ramble in the beautiful groves and fields sur- 
rounding this place, and along shore, without an ex- 
uberance of heat, and drink in this invigorating at- 
mosphere, insuring a full stock of health for opening 
the winter's campaign in the city, which can not be 
gained in warmer months. He can survey Connecti- 
cut and Long Island, for ever looking at each other 
from their pretty shores, bound in love, linked as they 
are by ties of common interest, and guarding with 
watchful care that inland sea which, won from the 
ocean, lies like a noble captive between them, reduced 
to their service, and enclosed by their protecting arms. 
I often amuse myself, as I watch the sunset 
clouds hovering like vast flocks of birds over the 
distant hills, by drawing comparisons in my imagi- 
nation between the scenes of three centuries ago, 
enacted around these forest-guarded waters, and 
those which at this hour pass before and around 
me. The belles of those times, as they sauntered 
about with their pretty legs encased in buckskin 
leggins, terminated by neat wampumed moccasins, 
and their swarthy shoulders exposed almost as low 
as the whiter and thinner ones of their Anglo-Saxon 



56 THE ABORIGINES. 

successors; or squatted on the greensward, with 
their brawny lovers, beside the water, cut rather a 
different figure from the fair and dashing daughters 
of the New York aristocracy who promenade the 
broad portico of the Pequot House, swathed in 
clouds of diaphanous muslins and brocade silks, 
their pale cheeks glowing with an effulgence, and 
their mincing feet encased in the daintiest of kid 
slippers. And the beaux — what a contrast ! Fig- 
ure to yourself a herculean Pequot warrior, his im- 
mense shoulders and muscular legs bare, his face 
and breast beautifully tattooed in red ochre and 
blue paint, and his head surmounted by a crescent 
of bright-colored feathers — his blanket carelessly 
thrown around him, and a tomahawk and its twin 
scalping-knife ostentatiously displayed in his wam- 
pum belt, strutting about with the air of a king ; 
and then compare him with the lankey and attenu- 
ated dandies of the present day, in tight coat and 
checked trowsers, who usurp the favorite walks of 
the red man, and dawdle around his most sacred 
haunts. Could the spirits of Sassacus and Uncas 
return to this spot as it now appears, what would be 
their '' first impressions" of all they would see and 
hear ? Would they prefer a bath to the high rock ? 



PLEASURE-SEEKERS. 57 

a drive to a sail in the light canoe ? settle their old 
differences and drink each other's healths in a bottle 
of sparkling champagne ? music and the hop to the 
whoop and the war dance ? 

In looking over this lovely place, one can scarcely 
realize that it is the identical spot where once was 
enacted that terrible scene, the most atrocious and 
unrelenting of wars, the Pequot — now the resort ot 
so much of fashion and gayety. It is sad to think 
that these pure waters have closed over the fate ot 
those children of the forest, dispatched by Captain 
Stoughton's company, a little without the harbor. 
The object of Stoughton's expeditions from Massa- 
chusetts was to extirpate, if possible, the remaining 
Pequots. The English forces, guided by Indian 
allies, Mohegans and Narragansetts, who knew every 
pass of the country, were successful. 

We are getting on famously here. Every day 
brings some pew pleasure-seekers, and we still 
retain, spell-bound and charmed, many of our most 

pleasing guests. The stylish Miss P , of New 

York ; the amiable Miss L , of Norwich ; 

the agreeable Miss L R , of New York; 

Hon. Samuel Williston, East Hampton; Thurlow 
Weed and family, Albany, and many others equally 



68 HON. JOHN COTTON SMITH. 

distinguished and interesting. Let us stop a mo- 
ment, however, by this window, and observe that 
fine-looking man of thirtj-six or eight, with Roman 
profile and true Anglo-Saxon head — who is he ? 
That is Hon. John Cotton Smith, of Connecticut, 
and, thej say. prospective Governor. He belongs 
to one of the oldest and most respectable families in 
the country, has a noble and commanding presence, 
a handsome and pleasing face, most dislim/ue air 
and manner, and as a matter of course attracts 
many a glance from the fair sex. He lived abroad 
some years, and there associated w^ith the highest 
and most refined circles. He possesses all the 
truthfulness and frankness of a New England gen- 
tleman, blended with the cultivation and fascination 
of a high-bred foreigner. 

Mr. Mather's exertions to please and make com- 
fortable his guests, are in no way diminished as the 
season draws to a close, and the company seem to 
fully appreciate his efibrts. No doubt those who 
come here next season will be legion, and meet 
many familiar faces. I understand they design 
making new improvements, and building large addi- 
tions to this already fine establishment. The house 
will be kept open until about the 1st of October. 



PLEASURE-SEEKERS. 69 

I have just come in from a promenade on the bal- 
cony. It is perfectly lighted by the full moon, 
whose orbed sphere, air-poised between sky and 
wave, flushed and palpitating with all unimaginable 
riches of light and shade, seems descending slowly 
to the lovely earth, drawn by some sweet and irre- 
sistible attraction. 



IX. 

TiQUOT House, New Loxdon, September 18, 1854. 

LEAVE-TAKiNa lias already commenced, but 
not without many regrets that this brilliant little 
kingdom of the " Pequot" must be interrupted for 
ft brief season. King, prince, and clerk of the me- 
tropolis must all return to the city, get ready for 
the coming election, look after the stocks, and re- 
sume money making, which is quite as necessary as 
spending it, in this hard-working, close-calculating 
country. The queen, ^d her maids of honor too, 
must leave the sounding sea, the quietude and re- 
freshing serenity, sacred haunts of contemplation and 
repose, to the dryads and naiads of stream and forest, 
and return to their palatial homes in Fifth Avenue 
and Union Square, to inspect the fruit, look after 
the sweetmeats and hearts, exhaust all the scandal 
of the town, get ready for the opera, find out where 



REVOLUTIONARY REMINISCENCES. 61 

they can buy the handsomest and most expensive 
dresses, the richest kces, adopt the fall fashions, 
and live in a perfect turmoil of excitement to excel 
their aristocratic neighbors. 

The parting, however, of the guests does not 
resemble the flight of the inhabitants at the storm- 
ing of Fort Griswold by traitor Arnold, although 
we have had some sharp shooting and many hearts 
taken captive, but no instance of a heart being 
pierced through with its own arrow after a sur- 
render. The pleasant and agreeable circle must 
part with the sweet promise on their lips, the 
bright hope in the heart, of returning with the early 
birds and flowers — wdien there will be a reunion 
of hearts, and renewal of friendships, of cherished 
and pleasant remembrances ; to walk or drive on 
the beach ; to climb to the top of the light-house, or 
sit on the high rock and overlook the Sound, w^ith 
its myriads of sails, and scan in the distance Groton 
monument, a fine specimen of architecture, reared 
to mark the spot of the closing scene of that most 
awful tragedy, the storming of Fort Griswold. 
How General Arnold could find it in his heart to 
steal upon his own people and kin (his birth-place 
being at Norwich, twelve miles distant from New 



62 REVOLUTIONARY REMINISCENCES. 

London,) under cover of night, and commit such 
butcheries, is a problem too difficult to solve. Our 
Puritan forefathers came to this countay for ' ' con- 
science' sake," but seem to have had very little left 
after their arrival; and occasionally, to this day, 
we meet faces among their descendants possessing, 
in expression, their Christian sternness. 

When the fort surrendered, few of the garrison 
had fallen. At least three fourths of the killed 
were sacrificed after the surrender. When the gate 
was opened, the enemy marched in, firing upon 
the retreating party. The British officer, at the 
head of the division, cried out, "Who commands 
this fort?" ''I did, sir, but you do now," replied 
Colonel Ledyard, raising and lowering his sword in 
token of submission, and advancing to present it to 
him The ferocious officer received the sword and 
plunged it up to the hilt in the owner's bosom, while 
his attendants, rushing upon the falling hero, dis- 
patched him with their bayonets. The American 
army at this time was small. Youths were put on 
duty ; commanders left their vessels in the harbor 
and fought in this battle. Daniel Williams, of Say- 
brook, was, perhaps, the youngest. His tombstone 
bears this inscription : ' ' Fell in the action at Fort 



FASHION AND DISPLAY. 63 

Griswold, on Groton Hill, in the fifteenth year of 
his age." Thomas, son of Lieutenant Parke Averj, 
aged seventeen, was killed fighting by the side of 
his father. As he fell, '' 'Tis in a good cause," 
said the father, and remained firm at his post. 
Such was the struggle for freedom in this beautiful 
country. 

Notwithstanding the lateness of the season, we 
daily have some new arrivals ; and our kind host 
shows the same solicitude for their comfort and 
convenience as two months since. A number of 
the guests have already engaged rooms for next 
season, and hope to find Mr. Mather at his post. 

The display and ostentation at our fashionable 
watering-places, like every thing else permitted by 
divine wisdom, have their uses. They serve espe- 
cially to set afloat and restore to the circulating 
medium of the country, the hoarded thousands 
gained by stingy intrigue or dishonest speculation 
during the other months of the year. The summer 
emigration from the metropolis is fast growing of a 
more important and noticeable character. The nu- 
merous and rapidly-increasing class of our really 
wealthy families — the strong infusion of foreign 
manners and languages, are fast communicating to 



64 FASHION AND DISPLAY. 

it a homogeneous character, forming the substratum 
of a real aristocracy, composed of the three elements 
of wealth, intelligence, and ion^ which, in a few 
years, will crystallize into a veritable, respectable, 
and self-sustaining aristocracy. We do not look 
with the distrust entertained or affected by many, 
upon this natural, rational and interesting develop- 
ment of republican society. The object and effect 
of republican institutions is not to destroy these so- 
cial distinctions, the germs of which have been 
planted by the Creator himself, but to substitute 
for the false and oppressive systems, created by the 
antiquity of family and law of primogeniture, ele- 
ments of real social distinction, founded upon en- 
ergy of character, moral worth, intellectual great- 
ness, and eminence of distinguished services or 
achievements. To this kind of aristocracy all must 
bow, for it is patented and authorized by the law of 
nature and the law of God. And such an aristoc- 
racy we must enevitably have in New York ; but 
the preliminary movements and notions in the pro- 
cess of its formation will necessarily be curious and 
interesting enough. 

If you would get here quickly, and without loss 
of time or sleep, I would advise you to take the 



THE NORWICH STEAMERS. 65 

new a.nd elegant steamboats Knickerbocker, or Con- 
necticut. They leave pier No. 18., North River, 
foot of Courtlandt street, every afternoon. Their 
accommodations are fine, tables excellent ; and we 
take pleasure in commending them to the traveling 
public, as being the best route from New York to 
New London, Norwich, Worcester, and Boston. 

The guests of the Pequot were agreeably sur- 
prised last evening by a serenade given by the 
New London brass band. The delicious music em- 
balmed the midnight air as with voices of dreams. 
As the stream of sound gathered strength, and 
swept on upon the awakened breeze, they sighed to 
find themselves awakening too, lest the blissful mu- 
sic of their dreams should fade into silence. We 
take pleasure in chronicling so pleasing an incident 
in the harmonious history of the Pecjuot, and cheer- 
fully add that nothing was ever better timed. 



X. 



— S^Ije Clifton '§oxm. 

Cataract House, Niagara Falls, November 5, 1S54. 

As I took my seat at Albany in one of those 
elegant and comfortable cars of the New York 
Central Railroad, for a first visit to the Falls, I felt 
a breathless anxiety not to be disappointed in view- 
ing, for the first time, the most sublime a.nd inter- 
esting wonder of the globe. As I passed up the 
valley of the Mohawk, a beautiful tract of fertile 
soil, adorned with the richest vegetation, and wat- 
ered by sparkling streams — those blue veins of the 
globe which circulate life and vigor through its sys- 
tem — I felt my mind expanding, and preparing for 
the effect of nature's greatest wonder. 

The New York Central Railroad is built in the 
most substantial manner, and is managed with great 
ability and energy. Its conductors are obliging 
and courteous men. The fine scenery, the many 



THE SUSPSENSION BRIDGE. 67 

beautiful old towns and villages it passes through, 
makes it a most pleasant route, though the points 
of interest are not of a striking nature. 

As you approach Niagara, and listen, for the 
&st time, to the ceaseless roar of the cataract, the 
mind is filled with emotions of awe, grandeur, and 
sublimity which it is perfectly impossible to de- 
scribe. I am convinced that no description by the 
pen can ever give the least idea of the cataract. It 
must be seen and felt before its grandeur and im- 
mense sublimity can be appreciated. But there is 
a work of art within sight, of majestic greatness, 
which, for beauty of proportion, and sti'ength and 
elegance of construction, can almost vie with the 
master-piece of nature. The Kailroad Suspension 
Bridge, spanning the mighty stream below ''the 
Falls," is one of the most interesting structures of 
human genius. So lofty, it seems to float in the 
air, yet firm as if its whole course v/ere based upon 
the solid earth. A second track, above the present 
way, is preparing for the railroad trains, and by 
the 1st of March will be completed ; and unless 
unforeseen difficulties arise, the first railway train 
will pass over ; and then will be seen in its full ex- 
tent the triumph of art applied to public utility. 



68 THE LUNA BOW. 

I know of nothing on the continent of America 
which approaches this work in beauty, grandeur 
and greatness of design. It must be a gigantic 
genius to devise a bridge which should give safe 
passage to hundreds of tons of weight bj a suspen- 
sion of iron cords from abutment to abutment. It 
is already looked upon with as much interest by 
the tourist as the Falls themselves. This bridge 
connects the New York Central road with the Great 
"Western Railway. The interest at the Falls, in con- 
nection with the bridge — the greatest iron bridge in 
the world — is an inducement for travelers to come 
this route. The Great Western or Canada road 
was opened in February last. I am told that no 
expense has been spared to make it perfect. The 
amount of travel by this route is already immense, 
and is the best evidence of its popularity. There 
are nearer, but no better, points at Niagara to get 
a full view of the Falls, than crossing this bridge. 
Passengers, by coming this route, may see the Falls 
without loss of time or additional expense. 

I would advise tourists to visit the Falls when 
the moon is within two or three days previous or 
after its full, as it is the only time when the Luna 
Bow can be seen.. When the weather is clear, fre- 



THE CLIFTON HOUSE. 69 

quentlj a whole arch can be seen, with three col- 
ors, verj distinct, and, I believe, is the only place 
on' the globe where a rainbow at night, in the form 
of an arch, can be seen at all. It is indescribably 
grand, worthy the attention of the tourist, and will 
amply pay him for a trip to the Falls. Travelers 
coming this route^ whose time is limited, would do 
well to go to the Clifton House, on the Canada 
side, to pass the night. It is a fine, large hotel, 
surrounded by beautiful pleasure grounds. In do- 
ing so, they will have ample time to see the Falls 
before the morning train leaves, and can also have 
a fine view of the Falls at sunrise, without leaving 
the house. This view is unsurpassed, and has no 
rival in grandeur, sublimity and interest. 



XL 

^rofof Ij cf illlmh. — pkljigfiit Central fimlroair.— S^Ijc 
dl^ljkag0 ^xmlxMtx. — OTlje ^xmoixt Powse. — €migra- 

Tekmont House, Chicago, November 7, 1854. 

I WOULD like to give your readers some of the 
facts in regard to the growth of this city and State 
— its railroad communication, the which would be- 
come more interesting, and, I might add, more as- 
tonishing than the wildest visions of the most va- 
grant imagination. It is but thirty-six years since 
the State government of Illinois was formed, a State 
which has now more than a million of inhabitants, and 
whose principal commercial city has more than sixty 
thousand people, three thousand miles of railroad fin- 
ished and in operation, and a year from now another 
thousand will be added. On these rails there are daily 
leaving and entering the city forty-six trains, making 
in all ninety-two trains per day, entering here, to ac- 
commodate travelers and commerce. Another im- 



GROWTH OF ILLINOIS. 71 

portant fact, in speaking of Chicago, as a great rail- 
road center. All her roads have been projected and 
will be built bj private enterprise. This shows 
that capitalists have placed abundant confidence in 
her commercial position. Eastern capitalists have 
been astonished at the low prices of railroad stock 
at the central States, who are ignorant of their re- 
sources, and the cheapness with which roads are 
built, not costing one half to build them in prairie 
States as it does in an eastern one. A fact worth 
repeating, that Chicago has three thousand miles of 
railroad in operation centering in it, and does not 
owe a single dollar for their construction. 

At the session of the Legislature in 1836-'7, the 
State entered upon a splendid scheme of " internal 
improvement." Some thirteen hundred miles of 
railroad to be at once completed, and five millions 
of dollars were expended in locating and grading 
them. A general financial embarrassment followed 
those years of madness and folly, the credit of the 
State went down, and bankruptcy and a general 
suspension of the public works were the conse- 
quence. In 1841 the total State indebtedness 
amounted to fifteen millions of dollars. The only 
mistake the statesmen of that period made, their 



72 MICHIGAN CENTRAL RAILROAD. 

plans were in advance of the times they lived in. 
Twenty years will accomplish, by private enter- 
prise, for the State of Illiuois, much more than the 
statesmen of '36-' 37 expected to realiz^e. Chica- 
go's railroad and water communication has given an 
impetus to its commerce and prosperity, and the 
Garden City has more than trebled her population 
in the short space of six years. 

There is no more pleasant route in the Union 
than the "Michigan Central," from Detroit to this 
city. It is unequaled for speed, comfort and safety. 
Its cars are new and elegant — its conductors polite 
and obliging, and its careful and successful manage- 
ment renders it worthy of an immense patronage. 
It passes through Ann Arbor, the location of the 
Michigan University, a beautiful town, and Jack- 
son, the location of the Penitentiary, At Marshall 
is the central dining establishment, almost en- 
closed by parks, filled with beautiful shade trees, 
and is unequaled by any eastern depot. The ma.- 
chine shops at Marshall are worthy a notice. They 
keep sixteen to twenty locomotives in order, to run 
one division of the road — making three divisions 
from Detroit to this city, a distance of two hun- 
dred and sixty-four miles. 



THE CHICAUO BREAKWATER. 73 

In all, twenty-four locomotives, mostly built in 
Detroit, and some of the finest I liave ever seen. 
Tlie engine house has twenty-three stalls, built in a 
circle of about two hundred feet in diameter, and 
takes in half the circle. In the center is a turn- 
table to turn every engine into a stall. Machines 
suitable for making and repairing locomotives. I 
was shown locomotives that would run one hundred 
and twenty miles in three hours and a half, and 
make from sixteen to twenty stops, to take on and 
leave passengers. On this road pass eighteen to 
twenty long passenger cars, well filled, and from a 
hundred and thirty to a hundred and fifty, loaded 
with merchandise, passing east and west every day. 

The breakwater opposite this city is a very ex- 
pensive and difficult work. It extends nearly two 
miles, and will cost, when completed, seven hun- 
dred and fifty thousand dollars. For a mile it is 
built in the Lake, the inside line being four hun- 
dred feet from the east side of Michigan avenue. 
The Michigan and Illinois Central railroads both 
enter the city upon this track. This great work 
commences at the South Pier. From the pier to 
the engine house the breakwater is twelve feet wide. 
The area enclosed and reserved from the dominion 
4 



74 THE CHICAGO BREAKWATER. 

of the Lake is about thirty-three acres. Upon this 
area the Illinois and Michigan railroads are erect- 
ing first J one passenger station-house, four hundred 
and fifty feet long by one hundred and sixty-five 
wide, including a car shed. The north-west corner 
of this building will be occupied exclusively for 
ofiice and passenger rooms, and will be forty by one 
hundred and' twenty feet, and three stories high. 
A freight building, six hundred by one hundred 
feet ; grain house one hundred by two hundred, and 
one hundred feet high, to the top of the elevators, 
calculated to hold five hundred thousand bushels. 
Three tracks will run into the freight house, eight 
tracks into the passenger house, and two tracks into 
the grain house. The basin lying between the 
freight and grain houses will be five hundred by 
one hundred and seventy-eight feet, and will open 
into the river. All these buildings are to be con- 
structed of stone obtained from Joliet. The cost of 
the buildings is not for from two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. The whole w^ork will be finished 
this year. 

Chicago is not as unhealthy as has been supposed. 
It is constantly fanned by pure breezes from the 
Lake, sweeping over hundreds of miles; with an 



THE TREMONT HOUSE. 75 

eflScient system of sewerage from lake to rivei-j and 
stone pavement, I know no reason \>hy it should 
not become as healthy as any eastern city. At 
present Chicago is paved with oak plank, and al- 
most every outlet leading from it. Planks make a 
fine carriage-way, and never shall I forget my 
pleasant drives at Chicago. 

I must not close without a well merited eulogy 
upon the Tremont House, kept by Gage and 
Brother, of Boston, who leased and opened in 1849. 
It was then predicted a bad speculation. They 
have from its profits already realized a handsome 
fortune. The house contains two hundred rooms, 
and will accommodate three hundred guests. The 
average arrivals per day are three hundred. It is 
built, finished and furnished equal to any in New 
York. I take much pleasure in commending it to 
all who visit Chicago, I have never seen better 
attendance or more profusely set tables. The house, 
notwithstanding its great transient patronage, is 
perfectly quiet — conducted with a system our east- 
ern landlords might study with profit. Mr. Gage 
is a pleasing, gentlemanly man, and seeks to make 
all his guests comfortable. 

The position of Chicago is not less favorable for 



76 



EMIGRATION. 



a manufacturing town than a commercial center. 
The manufactures are very extensive, and almost 
every thing is manuflictured here, from a railroad 
car to a hat. The thrift and enterprise with which 
every thing is conducted surprise and astonish the 
stranger. The city has many fine public buildings 
and beautiful residences. The celebrated stone 
quarry at Lemont, twenty-five miles south of Chi- 
cago, upon the Illinois and Michigan canal, is nearly 
a milk-white limestone, and forms one of the most 
beautiful building materials to be found in the 
western States. I much admire edifices with fronts 
of this stone. It must attract the attention and 
command the admiration of all who visit this city. 
Of late years the tide of emigration and travel 
has gone so much around the peninsula, into Wis- 
consin, Iowa, and northern Illinois, that this beau- 
tiful region has been too much overlooked and dis- 
regarded by persons traveling either for pleasure 
or in search of a home m the West. From the fine 
city of Detroit the entire distance to this magnifi- 
cent, noble emporium of enterprise and trade, whose 
growth seems more like magic than reality, is thickly 
studded with noble farms and pleasant villages. 
Some of them, like Marshall and Kalamazoo, are 



EMIGRATION. 77 

unsurpassed for beauty of location, and compare 
favorably with the most favorable of their class in 
New England and western New York. The crops 
this season are good, and the wheat, for which grain 
no section of the country is better adapted than 
southern Michigan, turned out a noble and prolific 
yield. One of the most striking and interesting 
features in the scenery, to one like myself, seeing 
it for the first time, are the superb groves and for- 
ests of oak, with which the country is studded — 
many of them clear of underbrush, and the grass 
close and green as that of a carefully tended park. 
And yet property is not held so high but that all 
desirous of purchasing either a village or a country 
residence in the forest, could do better in central 
and southern Michigan than in more distant States 
and Territories. It has a happy medium between a 
very new and a very old country. The sickness 
and diseases incident to new settlements have dis- 
appeared entirely, while the price of property is not 
so high as in an old district, and the state of society 
is equally good, moral, and refined. 



XII. 

S^ripf Ifl Cljarltsfoit. — ^\t Ih^iio^t h^ ^tmmtx, — S^fje 
€itnM g^tabcmg. 

Charleston Hotel, Cuarleston, S. C, February 2, 1S55. 

I SHOULD have written the "Day Book" be- 
fore, but my engagements have been such I have 
not had one leisure moment. Our voyage was as 
speedy as agreeable, the trip being made in forty- 
eight hours. Two days previous to leaving New 
York the weather was cold and stormy, but just 
as the steamer left the pier the clouds faded and 
parted behind the invisible curtains of air, and 
were seen no more. The glorious orb, undimmed 
by a single ray, looked down and smiled his prom- 
ise upon us ; and never was promise better kept : 
not a cloud was seen the whole passage. With the 
dark blue deep below, the clear heaven above in 
the serenity of its azure depths, the magnificent 
steamer swayed to and fro by the grace of the un- 



THE CHARLESTON HOTEL. 79 

dulating surface of the waves, and seemed more 
like a bird skimming the air than a vessel at sea. 
Never before have I traveled over the same dis- 
tance with such ease and pleasure. The Nashville 
is one of the finest boats on the line, and is com- 
manded by that faithful officer and accomplished 
gentleman, Captain Berry. This steamer has ever 
been noted for her safe and speedy trips. The 
only murmur of dissatisfaction I heard on board 
was that the passage had been too short ; and the 
company invited the captain, in the handsomest 
manner, to make a pleasure trip without unloading, 
but he is too great a disciplinarian to be persuaded, 
even by the ladies. 

I am happy to find myself in the care of the 
gentlemanly host of the Charleston Hotel, Mr. 
Mixer. I am surprised to find so magnificent a 
house out of the great metropolis. It is most ad- 
mirably fitted up, and the best conducted hotel in the 
city. In the furnishing and decorating, no useless 
article was admitted, no tasteless ornament intro- 
duced. Every thing is complete without super- 
fluity ; and here we find the full achievement of an 
elegant, quiet, comfortable home for the stranger or 
citizen ; and lest I degenerate into an absolute puff, 



80 SLAVERY. 

I will say no more, concluding by simply inviting 
those visiting Charleston to come to the Charleston 
Hotel and see if I do not speak truth, when I say 
it is equal, in all respects, to any other hotel in the 
Union. 

The money pressure is felt here almost as much 
as in New York. Charleston depends alone on her 
commerce — her exports, her imports, her receipts 
and sales of produce from the interior, and the sup- 
ply afforded in return, for an increase of prosperity. 
The gale of September did much damage to the 
crops; in some instances whole plantations were 
covered by salt water. The prices of cotton have 
been so low that producers have not sold, and, 
therefore, the country people have been unable to 
make their payments to city merchants. Much of 
the business here is conducted on twelve months' 
credit. The banks have refused to discount, and 
the "hard times" fall heavier here upon the mer- 
chants. But not so at the North ; there the labor- 
ing classes feel it most. Here the work is done 
mostly by negroes, who must be clad and fed, if the 
master suffers. 

I have watched the condition of the slaves here 
with interest, and I assure you they seem a happy, 



SLAVEKY. 81 

contented race — comfortably clad and well fed. I 
feel sure if abolitionists would come South and visit 
towns, villages and plantations, they would return 
home with their views changed in regard to South- 
ern institutions. Masters here do not require more 
than one third of the labor from a slave that a 
northern man does from a hired servant. The 
slaves are free from care, and do not even provide 
for their own offspring. A few days since, in a 
railroad car, I sat opposite a lady and gentleman 
traveling with their two little children and slave 
nurse, who were total strangers to me. They knew 
not whether I was from the North or South. The 
lady had provided herself with a small basket of 
provisions for the accommodation of her little ones, 
and whenever she offered fruit or cake to her chil- 
dren she invariably gave some to her nurse. Few 
mistresses at the North would take so much care of 
their hired nurses. 

The African race are as inferior to the white 
race in intellect as they are in personal appear- 
ance. They are wholly incapable of development 
for self-government or self-protection, and for their 
own benefit they must be controlled by others. I 
look upon slavery as a blessing instead of a curse 



82 SLAVERY. 

to them, and it is undoubtedly the natural convic- 
tion of the negro when he is in juxtaposition with 
white men. To emancipate them would not be to 
endow them with the moral or intellectual power to 
govern themselves or others, but to sink them into 
the same debasement and misery which mark their 
truly unhappy condition at the North. The rights 
of the master and slave are reciprocal under the 
laws of the South ; the right of the master is to the 
services of the slave for life, and the right of the 
slave, as secured by law, to humane and proper 
treatment, to comfortable lodgings, food and cloth- 
ing, and to proper care in infancy, sickness and 
old age. 

Fanaticism is the most dangerous of all influ- 
ences to which man is subject. I would beg of 
abolitionists to stop and pause before inciting slaves 
to insurrection or asking Congress to legislate upon 
southern institutions. The southern people are de- 
termined to protect their property^ and feel bound, 
as honorable and high-minded men, to have their 
rights respected, let it cost what it may. They 
do n't ask northerners to adopt or believe in their 
institutions, but they demand to be let alone. May 
our Union, like our freedom, be imperishable. 



THE ARSENAL. 83 

Charleston is a beautiful citj. Many of the 
public and private buildings possess much arch- 
itectural beauty. The residences here are not 
molded together by brick and mortar, as they are 
in our northern cities. There is a retirement, a 
repose pervading them, which makes them look 
more like the splendid palaces of opulence and 
rank, surrounded by the garden of fashion, than 
the habitations of a commercial city. 

I visited the Arsenal and Citadel Academy, and 
was invited by Major Capers, superintendent and 
professor, to walk through the establishment. It i^ 
modeled after the plan of West Point, and equals 
that institution in all respects, except in languages. 
Here are taught but two foreign languages, French 
and Spanish. The chambers of the two debating- 
societies are richly fitted, containing beautiful ban- 
ners bearing appropriate inscriptions, a handsome 
lecture room, etc., etc. On entering the armory 
(where secession is locked in, but possessing a ready 
key), the major pointed out two brass field pieces 
bearing Turkish arms, taken from the Turks by 
Commodore Decatur, and sold by Mrs. Decatur to 
the Arsenal of Charleston. 

Mayor Hutchison invited me to visit the Council 



84 STATUE OF CALHOUN. 

Chamber. It is very richly and appropriately 
furnished. On its walls hang full-length portraits 
of Washington, Calhoun, Jackson, and Taylor. 
They are all works of considerable merit. In the 
chamber are also a number of marble busts. 
Among them is one of Robert Fulton, one of 
America's gifted sons, which commands attention. 
It was chiseled by Bremond, a young French 
sculptor of great talent. It was copied from one 
in plaster by Iioudon, whom Fulton employed to 
cast, when in Paris from 1802 to 1805. It was 
presented by J. H. May, a native of South Caro- 
lina, to the citizens of Charleston. 

The statue of Calhoun, by Powers, is placed in 
the rotunda of the City Hall. It was shipped on 
the ill-fated vessel that was wrecked off Fire 
Island, the one on which the Countess Ossoli vy^as 
lost. It lay under the water twelve months. It 
was raised and now stands upon a pedestal, as the 
image of the bright ornament and spirit that will 
ever live in the hearts of the American people. 

Osgood, the artist, who is at the head of his 
profession, is here from New York. He has just 
finished two pictures of great merit — one, a por- 
trait of a young lady and belle of Charleston, the 



OSGOOD, THE PAINTER. SS 

otlier a portrait of an old gentleman some years 
since deceased. It was painted from a bust in 
plaster. It is said by those who were acquainted 
with the gentleman to be the best likeness ever 
taken of him. Osgood is winning fresh laurels 
every year in his beautiful art. 



XIII. 

United States Hotel, CoLtrMBiA, S. C, February 12, 1S55. 

SouTHERNEKS at present have but little to say 
about secession. The whole South are looking 
quietly on, watching the movements of the North ; 
but, I assure you, there is a deep under-current of 
feeling flowing steadily but slowly, as yet invisible 
to northerners, still its course is sure, and it will 
swell to the surface and deluge this Union, with 
misery, and perhaps with bloodshed. And by 
whom ? By those who should still be a band of 
brothers, who fought side by side, and sacrificed 
their all for their country's good; whose advance- 
ment and prosperity have been much greater than 
the sanguine hopes of the noble statesmen who 
formed this confederacy and framed its constitution. 
Will abolitionists still persist to interfere with south- 
ern rights, until forbearance ceases to be a virtue ? 



NORTHERN AGGRESSIONS. 87 

There are, no doubt, instances of slaves having 
tyrannical masters, and being subjected to inhuman 
treatment 5 for over the wide, wide world, there are 
tyrants in every land and in every clime — husband 
tyrants, father tyrants — but political tyrants, there 
should be none. In the hands of our rulers is 
placed a high and holy trust — their country's wel- 
fare — in discharge of which duty they should look 
to the greatest good to the greatest number. That 
special endowment, and superior intellect, fitting 
them for the exalted and responsible position they 
occupy was not given by divine Providence for 
their own aggrandizement, but to guide and sway 
the many, to produce harmony and perfection in 
the whole body politic. 

The South feel that they are constantly misrep- 
resented by northerners, which is too true. Allow- 
ing that occasionally a slave is treated with bru- 
tality, in all questions exceptions are not rules, it 
does not argue that it would be right that the 
whole or any should be emancipated — driven from 
comfortable homes and protection. The laws of 
the South protect the slave as well as the master, 
and are as strictly enforced against him as the 
slave, if he does not abide by them. Abolitionism 



88 THE LUMBER TRADE. 

had its origin among the descendants of the Puri- 
tans, whose forefathers came to this country for 
conscience' sake — to escape oppression — to worship 
in freedom, and, as thej said, ''to be let alone;" 
and may the descendants of that good and virtuous 
people remember the spirit which actuated their an- 
cestors, and let others alone. 

This is one of the prettiest towns I have ever 
visited, and I am told by the citizens here that it 
is healthy at all seasons of the year. It is sur- 
rounded by a rolling country, wooded by magnifi- 
cent white, or what is more properly termed the 
long-leaf pine. The lumber trade in this State is 
estimated at half a million a year. This pine not 
only produces the finest lumber in the United 
States, but the turpentine extracted from it is an- 
other source of great income. The gardens here 
have ever been the admiration of all travelers, and 
certainly they surpass any thing I have ever seen 
in pleasure grounds. 

Here all that constitutes the beautiful is put 
forth in the luxuriance of poetical tracery. Beds 
and broad walks, fringed with box wood, adorned 
with the orange, myrtle and pomegranate, and an 
occasional weeping willow bowing its graceful head, 



SOUTHERN RAILROADS. 89 

as it were, in admiration of the beauty at its feet. 
Arbors and summer houses, whose lattices are em- 
bowered in vines of rare beaut j ; ever and anon a 
flower peeps in, as a welcome messenger of coming 
spring, while you at the North sit shivering over 
coal fires, without a flower or green spot to look 
upon. The most beautiful place here, and the 
prettiest I have ever seen, is ex-Senator Preston's, 
although there are a few here that almost equal it 
in beauty. 

The railroads in this State are as good as those 
North, and as well, if not better, managed. They 
do not run as fast, but with more safety, and have 
fewer accidents. The cars are new, kept neat, finely 
cushioned. On every train is a stewardess to attend 
to the wants of passengers. 

The Columbians say the weather is cold for 
the season of the year. It seems to m.e like April. 
By the papers, I see, on the 7th instant, the ther- 
mometer in New York was ten degrees below zero ; 
here it was a mild and beautiful day. 



XIV. 

g^wgttsfa.' — S^Ije Cifg flail — S^Ije Cljurtlj cf t\^t '^iamnunt 

AuGirsTA Hotel, Augusta, Ga., February 22, 1S5 5. 

The South is associated with the romance of my 
early life. After many years' absence, I have been 
wont to think of its great rice and cotton fields, its 
groves of live-oak, magnolia, orange, myrtle, and 
pomegranate; and its mild climate and softened 
landscapes have been floating through my imagi- 
nation like a dream ever since. And now to re- 
visit this section of country, with its varied and 
most beautiful scenery, is to carry the mind back 
into the dream-like past — to bring all the romance 
of youth into vivid reality ; and much as the faith- 
lessness of the world has chilled the youthful im- 
pulses of my heart, I can not repress the natural 
sympathy of my breast toward these refined, ele- 
gant and noble-hearted people. 

This county was originally Saint Paul's parish. 



THE CITY HALL. 91 

In 1777 it was made the county of Richmond, re- 
ceiving its name from the Duke of Richmond, a 
great friend of American liberty. Augusta, its 
capital, is situated on the south-west bank of the 
Savannah river, and was named by General Ogle- 
thorpe in honor of one of the royal princes. Since 
the establishment of manufactures, and the comple- 
tion of its railroads, it having now more than a 
thousand miles centering in it, few cities have im- 
proved more rapidly than Augusta. It is well 
built, mostly of brick, and favorably situated for 
trade, being in the center of a thickly populated 
and wealthy country. 

This city has a number of fine public buildings. 
The City Hall, in Green street, is an ornament to 
the city. It is built of brick, three stories high, 
with a cupola surmounted by the figure of Justice. 
The Medical College is also a fine building. The 
Masonic Hall is a showy one. In Augusta there 
are five or six banks, and a number ot^ insurance 
agencies. The warehouses challenge the admira- 
tion of traders. There are ten or twelve of these 
structures, capable of holding seventy thousand 
bales of cotton, which were erected at a cost of 
more than $120,000. The premises belonging to 



92 THE CHURCH OF THE ATONEMENT. 

the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company are 
•worthy the attention of visitors. The freight depot 
is a most conveniently-arranged building. It is two 
hundred and eighty feet long, and eighty feet wide. 
The roof projects eleven feet beyond the walls on 
each side. Cars for receiving the goods stand un- 
der the projecting roof upon one side, and the 
loaded drays drive into all parts of the building 
through the doors of the opposite side. There are 
a good number of churches in Augusta. The 
Church of the Atonement is one of the most unique 
buildings I have ever seen. It literally seems to 
be a group of steeples. I am told it was erected 
at the expense of one family. The Presbyterian 
Church is a neat edifice, surrounded by a beautiful 
grove of oaks. The oak is a noble tree ; and to me 
a grove or a tree is a thing to love. Southerners 
display a refined taste in their buildings. Many 
of their churches are elegant and tasteful. Their 
private residences are arranged with an air of com- 
fort. The warm climate makes it necessary to have 
space, breathing room, vfhich adds much to the 
beauty and convenience of private dwellings, sur- 
rounded as they are by sj^acious grounds orna- 
mented with rare shrubs, and flowers of great 



ENTERPEIPE OF AUGUSTA. 93 

beaut J J many of them such as we never see at the 
North. 

I am much pleased with the enterprise and man- 
ufacturing spirit of Augusta ; for where there is 
industry and enterprise, there will agriculture and 
the learned professions thrive. They are as insep- 
arably connected as light and heat, as naturally 
dependent upon each other as causes and effects. 
Those who will give citizens good employment are 
their best friends. Useful employment, and that 
which is liberally rewarded, is the brightest charity 
of life. Here they have invaluable staples and im- 
mense advantages over the northern States ; they 
have also the same, if not superior, means for culti- 
vating the fine and useful arts. By making more 
of the necessaries of life among themselves, a vast 
amount of wealth could be retained here which is 
now taken from them. If they go on as they have 
already commenced, they will, in a few years, ar- 
rive at such a position as will cause the South to be 
pointed out among the most flourishing portions of 
the earth. 

There is much said here, as elsewhere, about 
" hard times." I am told that trade has not been 
as dull, and money as scarce, for many years, 



94 THE BLACK POPULATION. 

which, no doubt, is true. The epidemic last fall 
suspended business for two months, and two of the 
best months for business during the whole year ; 
still, one observes no visible distress ; no beggars ; 
no one begging for work, or going to ''soup houses." 
The South have accomplished, in their institution 
of slavery, what all the French revolutions have 
been fought for, philosophers have in vain legis- 
lated for — labor and security. 

The most interesting sight here on Sunday is to 
watch the black population going to church. Many 
of them are the most extravagantly dressed people 
you see in the street. The painly dressed ones 
wear black silk dresses, white muslin shawls and 
straw bonnets, or have their heads turbaned in 
handkerchiefs, tastefully arranged. The men arc 
habited in broadcloth, with bright buttons (they 
seem to have a penchant for bright buttons), fine 
hats and gloves, cane, and usually a watch and 
breast-pin. Smiling faces, which display a good 
set of ivory, and they look, on the whole, very lit- 
tle as if "humanity is crushed out of them," as 
abolitionists are wont to say. They have here two 
large African churches, Sunday schools every Sab- 
bath, taught orally, although many of them can 



INCIDENT. 95 

read — taught by their young masters and mis- 
tresses, when growing up. It is not unusual to 
see slaves reading newspapers, and familiar with 
the current news of the day. Slaveholders feel 
they have a duty to perform toward their slaves, 
and in most cases discharge the duty like Christian 
people — training them for civilized life, and teach- 
ing them Christianity. 

I beg leave to relate an incident which occurred 
in New York, told to me a few days since by a 
clergyman of Washington, in this State. He said : 
' ' There is living in Washington a free colored man 
whose family are slaves. The colored man had 
been desirous to purchase their freedom and emi- 
grate to Liberia. In his anxiety, he asked the 
clergyman to be kind enough to give him a letter, 
wdiich he could show to northerners as a reference 
of his integrity. The clergyman gave him a letter, 
and he left for the North. When in New York, he 
accidentally presented it to a celebrated .divine and 
leading abolitionist, whose sister, a lady of great 
talent, has written a book showing up the worst 
features of slavery. The divine invited the man to 
his house, saying his sister could give him a large 
donation ; but she was not in, and he was told to 



96 AUGUSTA HOTEL. 

call again and he would get it. He called, but she 
was out ; still the divine held out to him it would 
be sent on. Six months have passed, and nothing 
has been received. The colored man "said, when 
North, he presented the letter to many al)olition- 
ists, who said they would not give him one cent to 
purchase their freedom with, but would give thou- 
sands to assist them to abscond from their master." 

Now this is unpleasant for me to believe of 
northerners, who profess to be Christians and en- 
lightened people ; but I have related it as told 
to me by a clergyman of high standing. Would 
Christian abolitionists teach the same crime to the 
slaves they accuse the masters of — man-stealing ? 
No, no, abolitionists, that vfon't do ; if you arc 
sincere in your philanthropy, you will give thou- 
sands to assist them to purchase their freedom 
with, but not one cent to help them to escape. If 
they abscond, you will not make them freemen, but 
criminals, and you a participator, and answerable 
for that crime. I am happy to inform my readers 
that the husband has appealed to southerners, and 
has nearly made up the sum sufficient to purchase 
his family. 

I can not close without paying a well-merited 



AUGUSTA HOTEL. 97 

compliment to the Augusta Hotel, which is under 
the able management of U. P. Starr, and his as- 
sisting clerk. Wm. 0. Halloran. Its location is 
fine and central, convenient to all the depots, and 
is capable of accommodating two hundred and fifty 
guests. Its tables are profusely furnished with all 
the luxuries of the season. The rooms are large 
and well furnished, the house possesses all the 
modern improvements of eastern hotels. Mr. Starr 
is a gentlemanly and obliging host. His excellent 
and superior lady superintends many of the depart- 
ments of this well-regulated establishment, and to 
her must be accredited the decided superiority of 
this house over its rivals. It was the only house in 
Augusta that was kept open during the epidemic 
last season. I take much pleasure in commending 
this house to those who like quiet and substantial 
comfort, and every thing that the necessities or 
lyants of the traveling public can possibly demand 
or think of 

Here nature is opening her beauties. The dark 
gray clouds have rolled away, and the sky assumes 
a warmer ray. The summer wind whispers in gen- 
tle tones, the season's brightness and its warmth axe 
bringing up and producing green foliage, flowers, 



98 FORWARDNESS OF THE SEASON. 

and fruits. Ten years, at least, melts from the 
mind by the warm magic of the South, and helps 
us to forget the frozen climate of the North. Cold 
winter still settles gloomily around you in New 
York, and you may yet have to chronicle dozens 
of sleigh rides and ten degrees below zero. A 
week ago I saw peach orchards in blossom, and 
heard the harsh note of the croaking frog. 



XV. 

€n '§.ax\k for ^akimalj, — gi ^oitilji^rit ^mtstf. — IToss 
of fa^gage.— i;ij£ ^§nMxx Poimimui— g^ *' ^kbz" 

PxjLASKi House, Savannah, March 9, 1855. 

I TOOK my seat at Augusta in one of the fine 
cars of the Waynesborough and Georgia Railroad, 
on one of the most beautiful days that ever graced 
a southern clime, and caught with delight a view 
of a real Claude sunset, from its first glow to the 
last glimpse of its death shroud. It was a south- 
ern sunset, with all its dreamy characteristics, its 
harmony, its grandeur, its loveliness, and the last 
gleam of its setting smile playing upon the tall 
pines sighing to the passing breeze. All things 
seemed steeped in poetry. The purple and gold, 
and heaven's own dyes, lay soft and languid upon 
all around, and breathed into my own heart that 
sweet contentment and repose which is the only 
true enjoyment of life. 



100 LOSS OF BAGGAGE. 

I arrived in Savannah at half past one in the 
morning, in the happiest mood, and inquiring for 
mj baggage, I was politely informed by the con- 
ductor that it was missing. I expressed some 
regret and surprise, to which the omnibus driver 
replied, striding into his seat and giving a crack of 
the whip, "telegraph — that would bring it." I 
coolly replied, "I wish it would; I would tele- 
graph to-night, for I am very much in want of it," 
and drove to the hotel. I alighted and entered, 
and was shown to my room. As I bolted my door, 
the question arose in my mind, what am I to do? 
I have no night toilet. The clock struck two. I 
unrobed with the serious intention of arising at 
five, and leave in the first train of cars, in search 
of my lost trunk. Three hours for sleep !-^ut 
what am I to do? what am I to sleep in? A 
thought suggested itself I tied a skirt around my 
neck and turbaned my head in my handkerchief. 
Catching one glimpse of myself in the mirror, I 
laughed outright. A pretty good Chinese with my 
dark brunette face, if the frock was only a blue 
one ; but not being a has hieu, it is a color I never 
afiect. I retired, closing my eyes with the solemn 
promise, I will sleep. But oh, how those mysteri- 



LOSS OF BAGGAGE. 101 

ous wheels of the brain moved ! — they seemed to 
be propelled by a six boiler locomotive. Where 
was that huge black trunk of mine ? — that monster 
to all porters, that has had so many kicks, and 
cuffs, and tumble downs, on account of its weight, 
until it looks like a sailor's old weather beaten 
chest. Had that able-bodied class entered into a 
conspiracy and sent it on a long errand to get rid 
of ''toting" it up stairs? Shall I ever get it 
again, and find undisturbed all those tokens of af- 
fection — ^that dear lock of hair, resting so sweetly 
upon a card inclosed in an envelope, address, 
"Memento;" all those tender epistles, many of 
them not containing one word of truth? And 
then then poetry, the breathings of a tender soul, 
containing 



"So smoothly pass thine hours and years, 
So calmly beat thy heart, 
While both our souls in concert tuned, 
Nor hope nor dream apart." 



The miniature, shall I ever see that again ? And, 
above all, shall I ever see. that piece of poetry — 
the only copy in existence — those lines of love 
upon 



102 "MY FADED FLOWER.'' 



MY FADED FLOWER. 

I had a fairy little child 

With golden hair and eye of blue, 
That ever on my bosom smiled — 

A beauteous blossom fresh with dew. 

The light within her loving eyes 

Went to my heart with many a thrill, 

Eekindling there the faded dyes 

Of youth's fond dreams, all glowing stUl. 

Ko boyhood's dream of joyousness — 
Chivalric love, undying faith — 

Had half the strength and power to bless 
As my sweet baby's balmy breath. 

Her little arms twined around my neck, 
Like chnging vines around the oak — 

Her dimphng, laughter-rounded cheek 
Slept upon mine — -on muie it woke. 

Her brook-hke voice half shaped in words 
Of playful fondness, oh, how strong I 

My heart made musical, as the birds 
Steep the still forest air in song. 

She was my soul's bright flower — the star 
That from my heart's mysterious deep 

Rose like a planet o'er the far 

Dark sea, its kindly watch to keep. 

The star has set, the sky is dark — 
A sense of hfe hath gone from me ; 

The dreary world seems sad and stark- 
Daughter ! I wait to come to thee. 



LOSS OF BAGGAaE. 103 

Oh, how my heart-hive swarmed with fancies on 
the possibility of my never seeing those dear 
things again ! Their value was trifling. Even 
that ugly miniature grew beautiful in my mind's 
fancy. At last fancy wore itself out, like fanati- 
cism when let alone ; and I was just entering 
dreamland, when a poor, famished bell, without 
lungs, which seemed to be hung just outside my 
window, went tingle dong, tingle dong, tingle 
dong, and continued for full three quarters of an 
hour. The only thing it seemed to alarm in the 
whole city was my poor nerves. I was right glad 
when it ceased — it was sudden — ^no passing away 
sound, as if lost in the stillness of the night, in 
that unringing thing. 

I again withdrew into sweet oblivion, and the 
scream of "five o'clock!" was the first cause of 
recurring sense. I started — was soon ready and 
equipped for my journey. After searching every 
nook and corner, for several hundred miles around, 
Mends and unknown friends telegraphing hither 
and thither, I returned to Augusta, and after be- 
sieging every baggage room in the city, I went to 
the telegraph office and telegraphed to the most 
distant part in the State. It was then ten o'clock 



104 LOSS OF BAGGAGE. 

in the morning. I inquired, " Shall I receive an 
answer in an hour?" The wire-worker said, '^ Per- 
haps by six o'clock in the evening." I left, think- 
ing telegraphs were slow coaches in this part of the 
country. However, the answer came in good time, 
and I returned that night to Savannah, where I 
received my trunk next day, unlocked it, peeped 
in, and, much to my delight, all was there — locks 
of hair, miniature and poetry, in sweet confusion. 
I breathed more freely. To whom was I indebted 
for this good luck ? Was it the presiding of my 
good genius or Harnden's express ? I came to the 
conclusion that my thanks were due to Harnden's 
express. And now my fair and bachelor readers, 
if you lose your trunk, or have any packages to 
send or to be brought, I recommend you to Harn- 
den's express. Their business is conducted with 
care and promptness, and you will have your 
orders fulfilled in good time, for, I assure you, 
that is no slow coach. I would say again to my 
fair readers, if you are put under the care of a 
handsome and gentlemanly conductor, you will 
receive every polite attention, but look after your 
baggage ! 

Savannah lies on the south side of Savannah 



BUILDINGS OF SAVANNAH. 105 

river, built on a plateau of an altitude of about 
forty feet above the river. It is surrounded by a 
flat country, interspersed with many swamps, but 
has a large portion of fertile land. On the river, 
the tide swamp lands are extensive, and considered 
the most valuable lands in the State. Many of 
the rice plantations have a picturesque appearance. 
There is something in the soil of these rich rice 
plantations which renders them unhealthy, per- 
fectly destructive to the white population ; but I 
am told that the blacks enjoy on them uninterrupt- 
ed health. 

The colonial and revolutionary associations con- 
nected with the history of this section of Georgia 
are of deep interest. Here General Oglethorpe 
first landed and commenced the colony of Georgia ; 
here was the first revolutionary battle fought. This 
city has a number of handsome and imposing pub- 
lic buildings. The Custom House, built of Quincy 
granite, the Exchange, the hall of the Historical 
Society, and the State Bank, which is, 1 think, the 
handsomest building in the city. Savannah has a 
large number of churches, and many of them fine 
and handsome structures. Christ Church is one 
among the most imposing edifices in Savannah. 



106 THE PULASKI MONUMENT. 

The order of architecture is the Grecian Ionic. It 
has the most classical and chaste fag-ade I have ever 
seen. The present bishop of the diocese, Stephen 
Elliot, is its minister. 

The Pulaski Monument, in Monterey Square, 
is the attraction as well as the admiration of all 
strangers who visit Savannah. It was commenced 
in 1853, and only finished a few weeks since. It 
was erected, to the memory of Brigadier Count Pu- 
laski, who fell, mortally wounded, at the siege of 
Savannah, a name dear to the heart of every Amer- 
ican, and especially so to the people of Georgia. 
Count Pulaski was a Polish patriot. This classical 
and most beautiful marble memorial to his memory, 
was designed and executed by the gifted and ac- 
complished Lannitz, who has made marble breathe 
in so many forms of varied beauty. The monu- 
ment has great purity of style and richness of ef- 
fect. The design is so perfect, and the execution 
so artistic, the whole story is conveyed, almost at 
a glance, to the most unimaginative mind. The 
coats of arms of Poland and Georgia, surrounded 
by branches of laurel, ornament the cornice on the 
front. They stand united together — the eagle, 
the symbolic bird of both Poland and America, 



BONAVENTURE. 107 

emblem of liberty, independence and courage — 
rests on both, bidding proud defiance. The cannon 
on the corners of the die, emblematic of military loss 
and mourning, give the monument a strong military 
character. The bands on the shaft are alternately 
ornamented with the emblems of stars and garlands ; 
the shaft is surmounted by a highly elaborated cap, 
which adds richness, loftiness and grandeur to the 
structure. The monument is surmounted by a 
statue of Liberty, holding the banner of the ''stars 
and stripes." The architectural beauty of the mon- 
ument, as far as I could judge, is of the highest 
order, and, beyond question, is the finest monument 
in America. 

Yesterday I paid a visit to Bonaventure, five 
miles from Savannah, known as the old cemetery, 
and among the most lovely places in the world. 
My curiosity to view this deeply engaging spot had 
been thoroughly excited, as I had often heard it 
spoken of as an object well worthy the attention of 
strangers. On entering the cemetery— interesting 
repository of tombs, and well calculated to awaken 
our most serious feelings — I was struck with awe 
at the deep solemnity of this sepulchral scene. Its 
long, broad avenues of live-oak, from whose bend- 



108 SCHOOLS. 

ing limbs, stretched in reverential homage over the 
" honored dead," are suspended, like a pall, the 
gray moss of this section of country. On one 
side flows, like a big silent tear, the river ; on 
the other stand tall pines, sighing the harmonious 
breathings of the light zephyrs, conveying to the 
imaginative mind the consoling reflection that they 
are constantly whispering soft requiems over the 
tenants of the graves which they sentinel. The 
new cemetery, a mile from the city, is prettily laid 
out, and has much natural beauty of location and 
scenery. 

In Savannah there is much literary taste, many 
intelligent and cultivated minds. Education, how- 
ever, is not extended to the masses here as at the 
North. The free or common school system in this 
State is as yet quite imperfect. Those who are 
educated usually receive a collegiate education ; and 
one meets here many richly endowed and highly 
cultivated minds. The prosperity that awaits a 
people depends on the supremacy of mind, on the 
cultivation of the intellect, on the diffusion of knowd- 
edge and the arts ; not merely to the chosen few, 
but to that immense multitude who are at once in- 



A SLAVE FUNERAL.. 109 

vested with the privileges of freedom, and the rights 
of power. 

I should have liked to have had a northern abo- 
litionist witness, a few days since, a funeral proces- 
sion of a colored man, an ordained deacon of the 
Third Colored Baptist Church of this citj. In the 
procession were four uniformed fire companies. The 
Porters' Association, of which he was a member, 
turned out, and wore black scarfs, with white ro- 
settes. I also noticed two or three female benev- 
olent associations, distinguished by suitable dress- 
es. A spectator counted fifty-two carriages, well 
filled, besides a number on horseback, following the 
hearse. It is estimated that between two thousand 
and two thousand five hundred colored persons were 
in the procession. The procession was perfectly 
quiet and orderly, and conducted with the utmost 
decorum „ It would be. difficult for any working 
class at the North to get so expensive a funeral. I 
am told by good authority that the Colored Fe- 
male Missionary Society in Savannah make much 
larger donations than the white ladies. 

There is no country, and no place upon the face 
of the globe, where the negro race have such secur- 
ity for a wholesome living, as the slaves in the 



110 A SLAVE FUNERAL. 

United States. The condition of an African slave 
in America is as far superior to that of a chief on 
the coasts of Africa, as day is superior to night. 



XVI. 

Colttiiiks— ffee fjjciri) of f ffWs Imp, fe 

Perky Hotjse, Columbus, Ga., March 21, 1855. 

I FIND SO much more to be pleased than dis- 
pleased with in this beautiful town, I scarcely know 
what to say. Columbus is an incorporated city of 
seven or eight thousand inhabitants, situated upon 
the east bank of the Chattahoochee river. In front 
of the town ragged and large rocks rise over the 
whole bed of the river, and convert it into a suc- 
cess^bn of rapids. Nature displays many sublime 
and romantic scenes around Columbus ; and upon 
the banks of the river bearing the soft and pretty In- 
dian name, Chattahoochee, many of the landscapes 
are striking. '' Lover's Leap " is a high and ragged 
cliff, which terminates an ascending knoll of dark 
rocks projecting over the river, whose weather- 
beaten front stands out in bold relief, presenting an 
altitude which, for its precipitous rise, is seldom 
surpassed, and is well worthy of the attention of 



112 THE LEGEND OF LOVER'S LEAP. 

travelers. From its summit the city is but par- 
tially visible, but it commands a grand display of 
river scenery. Its beauty, wildness, grandeur, and 
sublimity would establish the scenic reputation of 
any locality ; and as untrained as my eye is to the 
beauties of nature, I could sit by' the hour and look 
upon this enchanting spot. The bed of the river is 
a deep ravine. It flows wild and rapid — broken by 
rocks and precipices over which the w^ter foams 
in craggy cascades, strongly reminding one of the 
rapids of Niagara. 

The legend of the "Lover's Leap" is a very 
romantic story of two young lovers whose attach- 
ment and devotion outrivaled that of Romeo and 
Juliet. They belonged to two powerful but rival 
tribes of Indians — the Cassetas and Cowetas — who 
inhabited this section of country in the beginning of 
the present century. History says the dark-eyed 
Mohina was the pride of her father's heart, and all 
his love for the beautiful in life was bestowed on her. 
■ The proud chief entertained a bitter hatred towards 
Young Eagle, the lover to whom was betrothed, 
when yet a child, his daughter Mohina. Years and 
feuds had suppressed kindly feelings in the hearts 
of all save those two young creatures, and the 



THE LEGEND OF LOVER S LEAP. 113 

pledged word was broken when the smoke of the 
calumet was extinguished. The hostilities of the 
tribes growing more fierce, the young lovers were 
forbidden to meet. With downcast look and softly- 
vailed anxiety Mohina consented to abscond wdth 
her lover. With undaunted courage they fled ' ' with 
love's light wings," for pure love dwelt in their 
hearts, and base fear crouched low before it. They 
were pursued. Love and terror added strength and 
speed to their flight, but the strength of the maiden 
failed in a perilous moment, and had not Young 
Eagle snatched her to his fast-beating heart, the 
enemy had made sure their fate. He rushed on- 
ward until he gained this fearful height, turned for 
a moment, cast a triumphant look on his enemies, 
and the next, with the beautiful Mohina still cling- 
ing to him, leaped into the surging stream below. 
The projecting rock, embossed with dark foliage, 
hangs as it were in grief over the shrines of the de- 
parted lovers, and still perpetuates the sad recollec- 
tion of those who were one in heart and one in death. 
Long since the Great Spirit called the old chief in 
sorrow and broken-hearted from the council fire to 
join the young lovers in the spirit land. 

Having half an hour of leisure, the other day, 



114 DAGUERRIAN GALLERY. 

I visited the daguerrian gallery in Broad street, 
and was most politely received by the accomplished 
artist, J. Andrew Riddle. I was much gratified 
but surprised to find such artistic and life-like pic- 
tures . They compare favorably with those of the best 
daguerrian artists in New York. The universal ac- 
cessibility of this art to all, renders it valuable to 
those who are debarred of possessing themselves of 
more expensive portraits. In the daguerreotype is 
fulfilled the long promise of art through ages, and 
the sunbeam becomes the pencil in the hand of that 
greatest of all artists, Nature. 

I saw there many excellent likenesses of dis- 
tinguished American citizens — Edwin Forrest, the 
American tragedian ; Saroni, the musical composer ; 
General Tom Thumb, in martial array ; Mrs. Car- 
oline Lee Hentz; and the lamented Mrs. Welby, 
whose sweet poetry is familiar to many. One 
among the most attractive in the gallery is a cor- 
rect likeness of Colonel Lomax, who was an officer 
in the Mexican army, at present editor and propri- 
etor of the Columbus '' Sentinel and Times." It 
would be difficult for the artist to do more than 
justice, and much less flatter the original. The 
colonel possesses a handsome face, expressive of 



WATER FACILITIES. 115 

the highest order of intellect, a distingm and en- 
gaging manner. He is also a bold and vigorous 
writer, without a trace of the audacity and extrav- 
agance which is so much in vogue with American 
journalists. In all he shows an appreciative, re- 
fined and delicate taste. He is a leading politician 
in this State, a man of great excellence and worth 
of character, is highly esteemed by the citizens of 
Columbus, and one of whom the South may be 
justly proud. 

No country is more highly favored with water 
facilities than Muscogee county. Chattahoochee 
river, in ordinary seasons, is navigable for nine 
months of the year to the Gulf of Mexico ; but 
the past fall and winter the river has been so low 
as to suspend navigation until'a few days since. In 
all probability, in a few weeks the pulses of trade 
will begin to beat, now that the big vein of the 
country, which circulates life and vigor through its 
system, is in full and healthy action. Cotton will 
be exported, merchandise imported, and those clever 
and handsome merchants in Broad street will send 
out their dainty circulars of invitation, which will 
be acknowledged in fashionable calls by those very 
pretty and interesting ladies (Columbus has not a 



116 COLUMBUS FEMALE ASYLUM. 

few), and they soon will be robed in muslins and 
laces transparently beautiful, and when used dis- 
creetly, and with taste, so much heighten and 
bring out a woman's natural charms and gifts of 
person. I shall ever retain a pleasing remem- 
brance of the interesting ladies of the Perry 
House and their kind and delicate attentions ; and 
may the pretty Mrs. C ever remain as beauti- 
ful as the flowers she presented me. Among the 
pleasant acquaintances I have made in this city is 
Dr. Thomas W. Grimes, celebrated for his anti- 
dyspeptic medicine, so highly appreciated by all 
suffering from that complaint, who have been so 
fortunate as to procure it for use. Dr. Gr. is a 
physician of the old school, and is one of the 
most extensive and successful practitioners in 
Georgia. 

The soil of this country varies from the richest 
vegetable mold to the poorest sand. There are 
several fine public buildings in Columbus, among 
Avhich are the Court House, Odd Fellows' Hall, 
and Methodist Church. The Methodist is the 
largest religious sect in this city. A few ladies of 
the Methodist church projected and erected '' The 
Columbus Female Asylum." It is educational and 



THE PERRY HOUSE. 117 

benevolent in its scope. The necessary funds, in 
the beginning of the enterprise, were raised in part 
by the needle. In 1848, upon invitation, a limited 
number from the other denominations of the city 
cheerfully united, and it is now in a most flourish- 
ing condition, the good work going on with Chris- 
tian zeal, and has already gladdened the heart of 
many an orphan. 

Columbus has several factories of large capital 
in successful operation. The buildings are a credit 
to the owners. Almost every thing is manufactured 
here, from the cotton gin to the churn — every kind 
of cotton and woolen goods — all kinds of writing, 
printing and wrapping paper. 

I am glad to see the South becoming more and 
more enterprising, and, therefore, more independent 
every year, by manufacturing more of the necessa- 
ries of life among themselves — establishing a recipro- 
cal sympathy and fellow-interest among all classes 
of society; in short, making one dependent upon 
another, which is the only true secret of happiness 
and prosperity. 

I would call public attention to this first class 
hotel, the Perry House. It is new, rooms large, 
pleasant and comfortably furnished, table excellent. 



118 SALUBRITY OF COLUMBUS. 

Strangers wishing to spend a few weeks South, I 
would recommend Columbus, being a healthy and 
'dry climate, and just the place where one could 
pass their time pleasantly and agreeably. 



XVII. 

^ frip to ^mnt fottts — getroit— S;ije ^obm of 3k\x- 
gam — Cljkago. — Illinois, — Jrairie^. — ^mnt IToms. 

Plantees' HotrsM, Saint Louis, June 16, 1855. 

At the present time, a trip from New York to 
Saint Louis is no difficult thing, but a pleasant en- 
joyment, attended with less fatigue than a jaunt of 
a hundred miles a few years since. The Hudson 
River Railroad connects at Albany with the Great 
Central route, including the New York Central. 
Great Western, Michigan Central, and Chicago, 
Alton and Saint Louis, forming an entire and per- 
fect line of railroad, and far the best and shortest 
route from New York to Saint Louis. By calling 
at the office, 173 Broadway, New York, one can 
procure from the polite and accomplished agent, 
Darius Clark, Esquire, a ticket which will, in an 
incredibly short space of time, take you from the 
bustle and noise of New York to the " Far West," 
by Niagara, and over the " Suspension Bridge" — 



120 A TRIP TO SAINT LOUIS. 

two of the greatest wonders of the new world. Few 
men are so highly esteemed as Mr. Clark. He 
possesses considerable literary taste, is a man of 
great excellence of character, and has made him- 
self famous bj ferreting out that gang of despera- 
does, the Michigan Central Railroad conspirators. 
It was he who had all the arrests made, and car- 
ried the whole thing successfully through. If he 
shows as much administrative ability and powers of 
calculation in his present agency, the success of the 
road will be unparalleled. 

I left Albany, that Dutch aristocratic capital, at 
eleven o'clock on the morning of the 29th of May, 
and passed up that fertile and. highly-cultivated re- 
gion, the valley of the Mohawk. The coming sum- 
mer, the lovely foliage, the rural scenery of field, 
and orchard, and meadow, and fine crops, that now 
look well, and promise a bountiful harvest, and all 
the gay pomp of June, present beauties and repose 
to the traveler. His thoughts are elevated and in- 
spired by contemplating this picture by the great- 
est of all artists — Nature. 

Twelve hours from Albany to Niagara, some 
three hundred and fifty miles ! Truly, the iron 
horse makes neighborhoods of distances. I arrived 



THE TOWNS OF MICHIGAN. 121 

at the Falls at eleven o'clock, and tarried for the 
night. 
• The next morning, after taking a look at the 
*' Falls" and Bridge, I took my seat in the cars for 
Detroit. The country, through the whole route, is 
rolhng and fertile, new, but fast filhng up ; and the 
crops look well. If one can judge by the specimens 
they see by the wayside, they have a mixed com- 
munity — Canadians, French, English, run-away ne- 
groes, and a few Yankees. Detroit is a jfine city, 
and I found the Biddle House the same elegant 
and comfortable place it has ever been since its 
opening. 

The route from Detroit to Chicago passes through 
many beautiful towns. Ami Arbor, Jackson, Mar- 
shall, Kalamazoo, Niles and Michigan City, are all 
towns of importance, and many of them gems — 
spots of earth upon which the eye can feast. At 
Marshall travelers get a most excellent dinner. 
Every thing is conducted with such order, taste and 
decorum, that one imagines he is dining in a fash- 
ionable hotel. 

I spent three days at Kalamazoo, and I saw the 
town and country to the best advantage at this de- 
lightful season. Every thing is filled with bios- 



122 THE CEMETERY. 

soms and flowers of spring : they looked like charm- 
ing retreats, upon -which memory loves to linger. 
The village contains about ten thousand inhabit- 
ants, located upon a burr-oak plain ; and the early 
settlers left standing many of the forest trees, whose 
lofty tops and wide-extending branches now add 
greatly to the beauty of the place. The residences 
are neat and tasteful, surrounded with grounds 
filled with shrubs and flowers. Some of the public 
buildings possess considerable architectural beauty ; 
and there are some fine ones in process of erection. 
Toward evening of a beautiful day, in company 
with a dear and interesting friend, I visited the 
cemetery, situated upon an eminence half a mile 
from the town, sufficiently removed fi:om its noise for 
retirement and calm reflection. It is carpeted with 
the delightful livery of nature ; and still are the 
forest trees sighing in the passing breeze, as it were 
in grief over the shrines of those that lay interred 
at their feet. There is a variety of memorials — 
and some of them very beautiful — that are here 
erected to perpetuate the fond recollections of those 
who were beloved in life. The view of the town 
from this spot is very picturesque. It looks like a 
city with tall spires, nestled in a deep wood. The 



CHICAGO. 123 

distant finishing which nature has given to the pic- 
ture is seldom found in American scenery. 

From Kalamazoo I took the cars for Chicago, 
where I arrived the same evening, and went direct 
to the Tremont House, and found it thronged, as 
usual. This house seems to me to be a world's 
fair to show up live specimens of humanity, and 
they always have on hand an extraordinary variety. 
Such a motley set ! You meet there the noble- 
man and his suite ; the backwoodsman in his coarse 
clothes and fur cap (all the same, June or Janu- 
ary) ; the illustrious lady and party, over dressed ; 
the German woman with her toys and wares for 
sale ; and all seem to have the same object in view, 
a hurry to get in, and anxious to get away. And 
there stands the identical stalwart porter, in what 
seems to be the area of the house, between the of- 
fice and the reception room, calhng out, at the top 
of his deep bass voice, at intervals of every ten min- 
utes during the twenty-four hours, " All for the 
Michigan Central," " all for the Milwaukie boat," 
"all for the Rock Island road," until he calls over 
the name of almost every place in the Union. 

In all this hubbub, I got left— did n't go in the 
first coach, but sent for an extra one and hurried 



124 THE PRAIRIES OF ILLINOIS. 

down to the depot, and there found several trains 
abreast. I inquired which was the St. Louis train 3 
it was pointed out ; I stepped in and took my seat, 
congratulating myself on not being left. The train 
soon started, and the conductor came round to look 
after his fare ; showed him my ticket, and to my 
surprise the handsome dandy informed me I was on 
the wrong train. I of course was left at the first 
station, but railroads in that section are very near 
neighbors, and fortunately for me the St. Louis 
train was fifteen minutes behind, and with an extra 
signal I got on board. It was a long train, eighteen 
cars and one horse, and proved rather a slow coach. 

That morning four hundred United States troops 
left Chicago, bound for Kansas, all armed with a 
tin cup and a long pipe. It was a comical sight 
to see them leave the cars at every station, and run 
in their stiff regimentals, tin cup in hand, for dear 
life, as if the enemy was at their heels. If the 
crops fail in tha,t section this year, I shall not be 
surprised — the consumption of water that day was 
enough to produce a drought for the next two years. 

It is almost worth a trip from New York here to 
see the magnificent prairies of Illinois. They seem 
almost as vast as the ocean j but not like the sea, 



ST. LOUIS. 125 

they do not inspire sublimity. For miles and miles, 
not a habitation, tree or shrub to be seen — nothing 
but the green, delightful carpet of Nature, and the 
blue skj mottled with soft white clouds. On the 
line of the railroad the country will soon be settled ; 
it is now fast filling up. In many parts of the 
State of Illinois lands have been in the hands of 
speculators and held at a fictitious value, and that, 
no doubt, is the reason so much valuable land re- 
mains unsettled. 

St. Louis is a noble and enterprising city, con- 
taining 120,000 inhabitants, and well built. The 
public buildings and business houses are nearly all 
fine, and many of them magnificent structures. A 
large number are constructed of ''Missouri mar- 
ble," and readily attract the eye of a stranger as 
he passes along Fourth street. Alongside of those 
marble buildings are others recently finished, which 
are also very ornamental, and mostly built of " Mis- 
souri iron," two natural productions which Missouri 
has in great abundance. St. Louis also has a fine 
back country, possessing the richest soil, and not 
only that, but her sister States — such as Iowa and 
Wisconsin — pouring their mine of wealth into the 
lap of St. Louis. In various parts of the city are 



126 ST. LOUIS. 

dwellings that are really palaces. One peculiarity 
in all kinds of buildings here, is the absence of any 
mere tinsel work, designed only for show. There 
is less of any thing bordering on ethereal. Every 
thing is done for permanency; all business here 
seems to be founded on a sure basis ; but few banks ; 
all trade being dependent on its own resources. 

The environs of St. Louis are very beautiful, 
and the drives pleasant. The "Belle Fontaine 
Road/' on which is located the Belle Fontaine Cem- 
etery, five miles from the city, has great natural 
beauty of location, new and, as yet, not much cul- 
tivated. Hyde Park is a place of great resort — 
grounds prettily laid out, ornamented with beauti- 
ful shade trees, flowers, and every thing which makes 
it pleasant and interesting to the visitor. In this 
magnificent park, of a fine evening, promenade own- 
ers of magnetic eyes and graceful forms, attended 
by distingm looking gentlemen, and along the walks 
leap groups of lovely and laughing children, arrayed 
in all a mother's pride condensed into the quaintest 
and most picturesque costume that ever fairy mil- 
liner imagined. 

The Planters' House is on the corner of Fourth, 
Chestnut and Pine streets, and one of the most de- 



ST. LOUIS. 12T 

lightful locations in the citj, kept bj pleasant and 
well-bred men. Of all the hotels I have ever visit- 
ed, this is one of the finest and best-managed estab- 
lishments, and is the hotel of St. Louis. The 
rooms are all spacious, airj, and well appointed. 
Two fine dining saloons — tables profusely furnished 
with all the luxuries of the St. Louis market (which 
are not a few, ) and served m perfect order and ele- 
gance. It is not surprising that the Planters' 
Hotel has become so widely known and always well 
filled, and this passing notice is justly due to the 
house and to those interested in its management. 

At present almost the only topic of conversation 
here is the failure of the house of Page k Bacon, 
and the Ohio and Mississippi railroad. The city of 
St. Louis has stock to the amount of $300,000. 
The county of St. Louis $200,000. Besides this 
sum subscribed by the city and county to this road 
in their corporate capacity, by individuals in said 
city and county, $271,000, making in all $771,000. 
This whole sum is likely to be lost, and attributable 
mainly, as it is said, to the mismanagement of the 
road. As Messrs. Page & Bacon had the control 
and management of the finances of the company, 
much indignation has been felt and uttered against 



128 ST. LOUIS. 

said firm, is pronounced gross and infamous libels, 
and that they are high-minded and honorable men 
— so you see they have here warm friends and bit- 
ter enemies, and it is impossible for a stranger to 
judge who is right or wrong. 



XVIII. 

Wt^tmx SHHroabs. — S^lje fooswrs. — JHtfe Cars.— 
gibbke to Conbuttors. — Inbiana. — STomsiiiU^. — |fs 
^rofoilj. — lolitits. — fouisHlIe foM. 

Louisville Hotel, Louisville, Ky., October 24, 1855. 

I LEFT the great central route, including New 
York Central, Great Western, and Michigan Cen- 
tral, forming a perfect line of railroad, and the best 
managed in the country, at Michigan City, and 
took the Salem and Albany road to Louisville. 
This road is new, but seems well managed. The 
conductor on the train, Mr. Harrison, proved him- 
self to be a most gentlemanly and vigilant man. 
The road crosses the entire State of Indiana. 
This almost telegraphic speed of railroad travel- 
ing changes in a few hours the romance of child- 
hood and the recitations of the school room into a 
vivid reality. The great lakes, rivers and prairies 
of the West have been fixed in my imagination. 

since my earliest remembrance, and I have been 
6^^ 



130 FACILITY OF TRAVELING. 

wont to think of them as untraveled regions to be 
seen only by the bold pioneer or the Indian, who 
ventured in his frail bark upon their deep clear 
waters. Now a trip West is no difficult or strange 
thing. Comparatively speaking, in a few hours, Ave 
are taken from the gay metropolis, with all its en- 
chantments, its show and extravagances, its beauti- 
ful ladies and handsome gentlemen, with fascinating 
and pleasing manners, cultivated as they generally 
are at the expense of frank-hearted sincerity. 

Our judgments are formed less from reason than 
from sensation ; and as sensation comes to us from 
the outward world, so we find ourselves more or 
less under its influence, and little by little we im- 
bibe a portion of our habits and feelings from it. 
It is not then without cause that when we wish to 
judge of a stranger beforehand, we look for indica- 
tions of his character in the circumstances which 
surround him. The things among which we live 
are necessarily made to take our image, and we un- 
consciously leave on them a thousand impressions of 
our minds. As we can judge by the imprint of the 
shoe in the sand the size of the foot that wears it, so 
theabodeof every man discovers to a close observer the 
extent of his intelligence and the feelings of his heart. 



HOOSIERS. 131 

Some of the people in the interior of Indiana are 
uncouth, and possess unbounded curiosity. As soon 
as they enter the car they give you a most searching 
stare, and immediately ejaculate, ''You traveling?" 
You answer in the affirmative. They wish to know 
where ; you tell them, and they say, " On a visit ?" 
If you answer by stating you are going to a more 
distant point, their stare of intense curiosity, if 
more intelligible, would annihilate you, and strongly 
reminds one how the children used to gaze at the 
elephant and the monkey away up in Vermont, I 
won't say how many years ago, when an elephant 
and monkey in those primitive days made a whole 
menagerie. When these well-meaning people get 
forty miles from home, they talk of the accomplish- 
ment as a greater feat than we think that of the 
allies in taking Sevastopol, if they had not been so 
long about it. The men all chew tobacco — not only 
their lips and teeth are dyed with the disgusting 
weed, but their clothes also, and the floor of the car 
is deluged with the saliva, upon which float apple- 
parings and other deposits, until the odor is insuf- 
ferable, and makes one feel like beating a retreat, 
and long for "sweet purification." They not only 
seem to think the car a coach of conveyance, but a 



132 ADVICE TO CONDUCTORS. 

box for contributions of every disgusting filth. If 
I were conductor, I 'd put up cards of regulations. 
^' Tobacco deposits — heinous offense ;" " apple-par- 
ings and paw-paws — heavy fine;" and so on to the 
minor nuisances down to the crumbs of bread and 
cheese. The human animal has no more right to 
chew tobacco and strew nuisance upon the floor of 
a public conveyance, at the expense of other peo- 
ple's comfort, than he has in a public parlor. 

Indiana is a fine State, possessing superior land. 
The north-western part is flat, with large prairies ; 
the south-eastern part rolling, with varied and beau- 
tiful scenery, well wooded and watered. On the 
line of the railroad, seven miles north of Lafayette, 
is the old battle ground where General Harrison 
conquered the Indians. It is walled in, or rather 
boarded in to resemble a wall. There are still 
standing many of the forest trees pierced with 
balls, showing the mis-hits at the Lidians. A few 
poor soldiers rest their heads peacefully pillowed, 
who lost their lives in this struggle, and I under- 
stand there is soon to be erected a monument to the 
memory of an officer who fell in this battle. 

Louisville is not increasing so rapidly as in former 
years, but its growth is sure and steady. Within a 



LOUISVILLE. 133 

year or two there has been a decided improvement 
in the architecture of the city. Main street has 
become lined with splendid business houses ; a fine 
new hotel has just been erected; a Baptist church, 
the finest in the city, costing $90,000, is about 
being completed ; a very extensive Masonic Tem- 
ple, occupying an entire square, is being finished ; 
and the largest and costliest custom house in the 
West is in process of erection. 

The people of Louisville are chiefly devoted to 
commercial pursuits, and a great deal of capital 
is invested in steamers. Manufacturing establish- 
ments, however, are growing. Two railroads, one 
to Lexington, and the other to Nashville, center 
here. Another to Memphis is spoken of, while 
those on the opposite shore of the river afford every 
facility for quick transit to the North and East. 

There are about sixty churches, the Methodist 
being most numerous ; two flourishing medical col- 
leges ; a law school ; and an unrivaled system of 
common school education. 

The Louisville Hotel is by far the most elegant 
and complete hotel I have found in the whole west- 
ern country. It possesses all modern improvements, 
and every arrangement is calculated to contribute to 



134 LOUISVILLE HOTEL. 

the comfort and convenience of guests. The pro- 
prietor, Mr. Kean, is a very agreeable, entertain- 
ing and energetic gentleman, and bas the ability, 
and succeeds in making himself^a most excellent 
host. Strangers visiting Louisville should by all 
means remember this house, where they will not 
only be surrounded with the necessities but the 
luxuries of life. 



XIX. 

^ dmt k Jfranhforf — f Ijc ^Mt ^nptol—m^z Cm- 

Capitol Hotel, Feankfort, Kt., November 12, 1355, 

The trip from Louisville to Frankfort is not 
made with the telegraphic speed we travel on some 
of the eastern roads, but with more care and cau- 
tion, hence fewer accidents to chronicle in which 
''nobodj is to blame." The cars are fine, the 
roads smooth, and managed with ability and en- 
ergy. The face of the country on the line of the 
road is gently undulating, excepting ' ' the beech 
flats," and some portions intersected by small 
streams, which are uneven and hilly. 

Frankfort, the capital of the State, is beautifully 
situated on the Kentucky river, sixty miles above 
its mouth, and nestled in the midst of the wild 
and romantic scenery which renders this stream so 
noted. From the tops of the overhanging cliffs, 



136 THE STATE CAPITOL. 

'■which environ the plain beneath like the bastion 
curtains of a mighty castle, the city of Frankfort 
and the town of South Frankfort, with their public 
edifices and private residences, their spires and gar- 
dens, and the graceful stream which, like a silver 
thread, sweeps through the green valley, are all 
spread out to the eye in a single view of varied and 
picturesque beauty. The State House, with the 
public offices on either side of it, is situated on a 
slight eminence, about half way between the river, 
which it fronts, and the northern termination of the 
valley. It is a large and handsome structure, built 
of Kentucky marble, with a portico in front, sup- 
ported by six columns of the Ionic order. The 
Senate and Kepresentative halls are large rooms, 
beautifully finished and furnished. The walls are 
ornamented with portraits, one of General Wash- 
ington, life size ; one of General Lafayette, which 
is really a work of great merit ; and also those of 
Colonel Daniel Boone and General William Henry 
Harrison. In the governor's office I saw a smaller 
portrait of Daniel Boone, said to be the only cor- 
rect likeness extant. It was painted in 1819, in 
the last years of his life, when in feeble health, by 
a celebrated American artist, who visited him in 



THE CEMETERY. 137 

Missouri for that purpose. I am told when the art- 
ist reached there he found the old hardy pioneer 
reclining on his bed, and a slice of venison twisted 
round the rammer of his rifle, within reach of his 
hand, was roasting before the fire. The expression 
of his countenance in this picture is one of firm 
purpose, but of kind heart. The public offices are 
plain, but neat and substantial buildings. The 
public grounds embrace an area of some four or 
five acres, and are studded with a variety of 
handsome shrubs and forest trees. In front of 
the capitol is a beautiful fountain. The gov- 
ernor's house is a large, plain brick building. 

I am indebted to his Excellency Governor More- 
head for a visit to the cemetery. It is situated in 
the north-eastern precincts of the city, sufficiently 
removed from its noise and bustle for retirement 
and calm reflection, upon a high eminence, on the 
bank of the river, overlooking the city and valley, 
and the beautiful surrounding country. Its long, 
broad avenues of handsome forest trees, their wav- 
ing tops sighing in the passing breeze, as it were, 
in grief over the shrines of those that are interred 
at their feet. The beauty of memorials that are 
here erected to perpetuate the fond recollections of 



138 THE CEMETERY. 

those " who were beloved in life, and sainted in the 
grave," far exceeded my expectations. This city 
of silent inmates is arranged in the most appropri- 
ate and convenient manner, so as to permit a pro- 
cession, even in carriages, to approach within a few 
feet of every grave. 

While wandering among these glass-clad avenues 
I observed a variety of beautiful shrubbery. The 
" solemn yew," that sorrow-stricken tree which 
pines in the night breeze over the solitary dead ; 
the cypress, emblem of mourning ; but an absence 
of the weeping willow, to shed its melancholy yet 
pleasing influence around. There is an indescrib- 
able beauty connected with this sensitive tree, which 
renders it peculiarly suitable as an appendage to 
the sanctuary of the dead — its bending form rust- 
ling with the slightest agitation; and when the 
living mourners assemble beneath its waving can- 
opy, may they not conceive by a rather strong 
figure of prosopopoeia, that the harmonious breath- 
ings of the light zephyrs, as they struggle through 
its luxuriant foliage, cause it to sympathize with 
the bereaved feelings which lacerate their own 
breasts ? 

In the Erankfort cemetery, by an act of the 



THE MILITARY MONUMENT. 139 

Legislature, was erected, on the State mound, the 
Military Monument. It was designed and executed 
by Mr. Robert E. Launitz, of New York. I shall 
attempt, without a hope, however, of doing justice, 
or being successful, to give a general outline of the 
features of this beautiful work of art. The main 
structure stands upon a base of beautiful Connec- 
ticut granite, elegantly chiseled, and twenty feet 
square at the base. The material of the monument 
itself is the purest marble, free from all blemishes, 
and perfectly uniform in color, imported expressly 
for the purpose from a celebrated quarry at Car- 
rara, Italy. 

On the front, and first tablet above the base, is 
inscribed — ''Military Monument, erected by Ken- 
tucky, A. D. 1851." Reverse side — '' Kentucky 
has erected this column in gTatitude, equally to 
her officers and soldiers." On the other side, the 
principal battles and campaigns, in which her sons 
devoted their lives to their country, are inscribed 
on the bands, and beneath the same are the names 
of her officers who fell. "The names of her sol- 
diers who died for their country are too numerous 
to be inscribed on any column." North side — 
"By order of the Legislature, the name of Colonel 



140 THE MILITARY MONUMENT. 

J. J. Hardin, of the 1st Regiment Illinois Infantry, 
a son of Kentucky, who fell at Buena Vista, is in- 
scribed hereon." 

These tablets are set in panel work on which are 
carved beautiful figures, to be hereafter noticed. 
Above and surrounding these is an elegantly carved 
cornice, extending out several inches, the shading 
of which is deep and of exquisite sculpture. On 
each corner of this cornice block stands the colossal 
figure of an eagle, symbolic bird of America — em- 
blem of liberty, independence and courage, bidding 
proud defiance. These noble representations of one 
of the nation's emblems, standing, as they do, in 
bold relief as guards to each corner of the die, 
will always attract marked attention. The coat 
of arms of Kentucky, surrounded by a represent- 
ation of the rays of the sun, stands between these 
eagles on the front and reverse sides, with the 
inscription over the hunters, who are clasping each 
other's hands and shoulders, ''United we stand, 
divided we fall." Then comes the pedestal block 
of the column. 

As stated in the inscription above, the names of 
the battles in which Kentuckians were engaged are 
inscribed on the bands between each block, and on 



THE MILITARY MONUMENT. 141 

the blocks belowj the names of officers who fell in 
those battles. The names are too many for me to 
write out. There are no inscriptions on the north 
side above the tablet, the Legislature having directed 
that places should be left to be filled up hereafter. 

The artist has beautifully illustrated the design 
in the ornaments and statues. As a whole, it seems 
to me the most beautiful idea ever conceived by 
man. and does much credit to the taste of Ken- 
tuckians. It is erected in the center of the 
mound, and beneath its shadow rests peacefully 
the illustrious dead who have fallen in the numer- 
ous battles in which the noble sons of Kentucky 
have been engaged. Thus, the figures on the front 
panel on each side of the tablet represent Civic and 
Military Fame, the one holding the branch of oak, 
and the other laurel. They blow their trumpets to 
make known the valiant deeds of the fallen, and to 
call upon rising generations to imitate the noble 
deeds and virtues of their fathers. On the reverse 
side are History and War — war concluded, victory 
won — the sheath, sword and wreath of laurel : the 
soldier's meed in one hand, and handing her trophy 
to History, as if to say^ ''It is your task now to 
put my deeds on your record." 



142 THE MILITARY MONUMENT. 

The cap of the column is composed of the palm- 
leaf, always an emblem of reward for merit. Mili- 
tary arms, by the side of which are cannon, and 
cannon balls, giving the monument a strong mili- 
tary character, are placed over the cap, and over 
these the banners which floated over them while 
gaining death and victory. The monument is sur- 
mounted by a statue of Victory, her drapery flow- 
ing in graceful folds, standing elevated on a pedestal 
several feet above all else, and seems in the act of 
ratifying, with her crowns in hand, the award paid 
to the illustrious dead, whose lives were freely 
given for the honor and defense of their country. 
It is inferior in magnificence of proportion to sev- 
eral other public monuments in America ; but for 
beauty of proportion, elegance of design and mate- 
rial, and taste and genius displayed in adornments 
and execution, there is nothing to surpass it, I be- 
lieve nothing to equal it, in this country. It is 
a created poem, beautiful as a fancy dream of a 
young painter. It not only illustrates the virtues 
and noble deeds of the fallen patriots of the State 
in a durable and handsome manner, but it is an evi- 
dence that her people can appreciate the beautiful 
in art, at the same time they are representing the 



DANIEL BOONE. 143 

patriotic impulses of their constituency ; and it will 
immortalize the inspiration of the gifted and ac- 
complished Launitz, who has already made marble 
breathe in so many forms of varied beauty. 

My greatful thanks are due to that polished gen- 
tleman, Judge Mason Brown, Secretary of State, 
for a fine picture of this exquisite monument. 

A short distance from the mound on which stands 
the Military Monument, is another by the same 
artist, and equally as fine a piece of sculpture, to 
commemorate the memory of Colonel Richard M. 
Johnson. 

The remains of Colonel Daniel Boone, and those 
of his wife, were removed from the State of Mis- 
souri and rest in this interesting spot, peacefully 
pillowed, without a tombstone, under the shadow of 
two fine sycamore trees ; and the only things that 
mark the spot are a clump of cane, and a semicircle 
of rough rocks and stumps promiscuously thrown 
together. This, no doubt, is an appropriate memo- 
rial to his memory, as he was one who ever flew 
before civilization. Still, I think there should be 
some memorial erected by which a stranger would 
recognize his resting-place. 

The citizens of Frankfort are a polite, courteous 



144 GOVERNOR MOREHEAD. 

people, with great suavity of manner, blended with 
grace and polished dignity. Many distinguished 
families reside here. Among them the talented ex- 
Governor Crittenden, whose pretty wife was known, 
a few years since, in fashionable circles, as the hand- 
some and fascinating Mrs. General Ashley. She is 
still mistress of her many charms. There are an 
unusual number of beautiful ladies here, and all 
with whom I have met have gentle and pleasing 
manners. 

Governor Morehead, who fills the executive chair 
of Kentucky, is a truly accomplished man. He has 
a noble and commanding figure, and a handsome 
and pleasing countenance. He is a whig, but pop- 
ular with all parties ; and all are ready to acknowl- 
edge that the man honors the place full as much as 
the place honors the man, and one of whom Ken- 
tucky may justly be proud. 

Kentucky has the best climate, and embraces 
some of the finest lands and most beautiful scenery, 
of any State in the Union. She is midway be- 
tween the North and the South, and may she 
prove a knot tied by her noble sons to hold to- 
gether and cement in good feeling the union of the 
States — the rock of our salvation. American spir- 



THE CAPITOL HOTEL. 145 

it, which once defied and resisted British oppres- 
sion, should become pride. Let it never be re- 
corded of Americans, that after having overcome 
the greatest difficulties, and gained the admiration 
of the whole world bj their valor and policy, they 
lost their acquired reputation, their national conse- 
quence and happiness, by their own indiscretion. 

The Constitution is not feeble : it is yet fresh 
and strong. Nothing has come to cause its dissolu- 
tion but abolition fanaticism. Like the granite rock 
on the ocean strand, which drives back the ceaseless 
waves that assail its base, will every Union-loving 
heart resist the assaults made upon it, come how or 
whence they may. 

The Capitol Hotel is a new, large, pleasant and 
well-appointed house. Its table is profusely fur- 
nished, and served with much taste and elegance. 
Strangers wishing to spend a few weeks in Ken- 
tucky, will find the Capitol Hotel just the place 
where one can pass their time pleasantly and agree- 
ably. 



XX. 

St, Chakles Hotel, New Oeleans, December 20, 1855. 

My journey from Louisville to New Orleans has 
been much more agreeable than my previous expe- 
rience of some years since had led me to expect. 
Wo talk of the march of intellect — the progress of 
intellect — the progress of the age, but the extrava- 
gance of living, and the conveniences for traveling, 
supersede all other advancements. I took passage on 
the '' Belle Sheridan," one of the finest boats on the 
river, commanded by the gallant and obliging Cap- 
tain Key. The accommodations on this boat are 
equal to the best regulated hotels, ai!d the journey 
of fifteen hundred miles was achieved in this float- 
ing palace with perfect ease and comfort. Her 
state rooms are larger and better furnished than 
some of the single rooms in the fashionable hotels 
of New York. She had seventy-five or a hundred 
passengers, and a more happy or merry party I 



SOUl'HERN SCENERY. 147 

have seldom met. The only murmur of dissatis- 
faction I heard was the trip had been too short, 
whereupon the company invited Captain Key, in 
the handsomest manner, to make a pleasure excur- 
sion without unloading, but he is too great a dis- 
ciplinarian, and too successful in commanding ''a 
Belle" to be persuaded even by the ladies. 

The scenery is interesting and picturesque for a 
hundred and fifty miles above New Orleans. There 
is something indescribably agreeable in the smooth 
and boundless expanse of unrivaled fertility, whose 
dim outline mingles with the blue of the far-off 
Gulf — the whole vast plain covered by immense 
fields of sugar cane, the richest staple of America, 
with occasional rice patches waving in the breeze. 
Then, too, we see orange groves laden with ripe and 
golden fruit — trees of the live oak and magnolia, 
surrounding neat white mansions, the abodes of 
wealth, comfort, and hospitality — summer houses of 
oriental architecture, wreathed with the rarest vines 
and flowers, and innumerable cattle and horses graz- 
ing in the fields, or reposing here and there under 
the shade of the wooded points. Although not pro- 
lific, like the North and West, in hill and dale, cliff 
and cascade, alternately varying and beautifying the 



148 SOUTHERN SCENERY. 

landscape, yet the South enchains and fascinates as 
truly as if the " enchanter's wand" had been at 
work and transformed what may have been the 
ocean, or connecting together floating prairies, had 
created this vast and beautiful Elysium. 

The last day of the journey was the Sabbath — a 
day so soft and fine that nature seemed carpeted 
with emerald and bordered with flowers of a thou- 
sand hues. The rose clustering with the jessamine, 
appeared to repose in the beauty of holiness, fanned 
by the breath of heaven filled with sweet incense, 
I lingered on deck many hours, wooed by the bland 
atmosphere of this latitude and the beauty around, 
as the boat glided smoothly along upon the waves 
of the great highway to the ocean. In my reverie 
my mind reverted back to the time when De Soto, the 
Spanish adventurer, discovered these waters. Men 
have changed, forests have fallen, cities have risen, 
and the red man has followed the buffalo to the far- 
off mountains, where he may look upon the setting 
sun and muse upon his fate ; but still the Missis- 
sippi is the same. The old trees I see floating upon 
the stream, where grew they ? How many miles 
has that old log traveled from the spot where its 
sprig first peeped out upon the wooing sunbeam ? 



SOUTHEKN HOSPITALITY 149 

How many years since the midnight blast tore it 
from the mountain side ? and at how many islands 
and banks has it rested till lifted again by the swell- 
ing flood to speed once more upon its journey? 
Like its course upon the waves, generations are 
speeding along the tide of time, hurrying onward to 
the eternal ocean. Nothing charmed me more than 
watching the distant landscape fading away in the soft 
twilight of a southern sky, more like some fancied 
creation than a reality. There are those who have 
no music in their souls, but I doubt if there lives 
one so sublimely stupid, so unenviously apathetic, 
so malignly indifferent, as not to feel somewhat more 
than mere existence as he floats upon this grand 
river, and contemplates in silence the luxuriant 
beauty of its banks in this dreamy atmosphere. 

Often when the boat stopped, the passengers would 
stroll upon the bank to some neighboring mansion, 
where plenty and hospitality seemed ever to reign. 
The kind hostess would invite them to^ her garden 
— a December picture in nature ! — filled with fruits 
and flowers, and I am sure more beautiful than those 
of lost Paradise, or mother Eve never would have 
had that last talk with the beguiling serpent. I 
saw at one gathering, forty bouquets without mar- 



150 GROWTH OP NEW ORLEANS. 

ring the picture — each one of which would have 
cost in New York, in these holiday times, twenty 
dollars. How our modern belles would have cov- 
eted them to decorate their magnificent parlors for 
the coming New Year ! I here gladly make my cor- 
dial thanks to the beautiful and accomplished Miss 

K , of Kentucky, for the exquisite bouquet she 

presented me, and the speech delivered with such 
naivete and grace from her rosy lips. May her 
pure and spotless mind ever shed upon the world a 
perfume as rare and delicate as the flowers she 
culled for me. 

New Orleans has greatly improved in architec- 
tural taste since my last visit, m '42. The city is 
now under one municipal government, and there 
seems to be more union of feeling between the 
French and American population. It is strictly a 
busy, bustling commercial city — to the South what 
New York is to the North. The general health is 
good. The weather warm — musquito bars requi- 
site, but not fires. Strangers are flocking here in 
crowds to pass the winter on business or pleasure, 
and both have a promisiing beginning. The French 
theater is open with attractive programmes. A new 
prima donna, Madame Colson, is playing hereto 



RACHEL. 151 

large houses. Hackett, a week since, finished a 
most successful -engagement at the St. Charles. The 
Gaiety and the Pelican are doing well. Mademoi- 
selle Rachel is expected here soon. People are 
rubbing up their French and studying beforehand 
the plays she acts in order to understand her. I 
predict here will be her greatest success in this coun- 
try. The French population are in ecstacy about 
her, and those who neither understand her language 
nor her talent, will enjoy her acting from the influ- 
ence of the sensation produced by those around them. 



XXI. 

S^fee gefo Custom ioitse.— dm ^c{ 



Saint Charles Hotel, New Osleans, January 1, 1856, 

New Orleans can boast of one of the finest 
hotels in America. In magnificence and beauty of 
proportion, elegance of design and material, and 
taste displayed in architectural adornment and exe- 
cution, there is nothing in the hotel line in this 
country exceeds the Saint Charles ; and it afibrds 
an evidence that the citizens of New Orleans can 
appreciate the beautiful as well as the comforts and 
elegances of living. The interior of the building 
surpasses the exterior, if possible. In furnishing 
and decoration the parlors no useless article was ad- 
mitted, no foolish ornament was introduced. Every 
thing is complete, without superfluity. The bed- 
rooms are large, and tastefully furnished with every 
convenience. There arc three dinners served each 



NEW ORLEANS IN WINTER. 153 

day, so that one can suit his own time and conve- 
nience in taking meals and refreshment. The "or- 
dinaries" are elaborately finished, and elegantly fur- 
nished with tables set with rich plate and crystal, 
that would do honor to any nobleman's palace. 
Those who visit New Orleans should go to this 
magnificent establishment, and place themselves 
under the care of those agreeable and gentlemanly 
men, the Messrs. Hall and Hilldreth, the proprie- 
tors of this excellent house. In winter, the Saint 
Charles compares favorably with the United States 
at Saratoga, in summer, in gayety and fashion; 
and wherever we are, or under whatever sky we 
move, woman is, after all, an interesting problem, 
well worth the studying, especially if you have 
nothing else to do. And strange, piquant and 
peculiar as may be her habits, her appearance and 
her caprices elsewhere, it is only at these gay, fash- 
ionable gatherings, where talent, beauty, fashion, 
spiced and flavored with real full-blood aristocracy 
from all parts of the Union and the old world — all 
mingling unrestrainedly, and, like a garden of flow- 
ers, each swaying in obedience to its own beautifdl 
instinct — that woman assumes her highest form of 
development, and puts on all her powers of fascina- 



154 A FASHIONABLE LADY'S DAILY llOUTINE. 

tion and display. In home circles in large cities, a 
kind of conventional barrier is erected around a 
fashionable woman, which she seldom masters cour- 
age to overleap ; but where everybody comes and 
goes in a month, and memory will not stoop to re- 
cord the flirtings and coquettings of the hour, there 
is no time to build up these artificial fences, and no 
material of which to compose them. The drawing- 
rooms and the broad halls of the hotel become an 
unobstructed area for the display of every whim or 
caprice born in a pretty woman's brain, like bubbles 
in the bright champagne — a race-course for every 
folly to enter and run its career unimpeded. 

After making a fashionable toilette, breakfast is 
the next important event — and this is loitered over 
as long as possible, listening to proposals for the 
morning walk, the afternoon drive, or the evening 
^op-eration, and digest simultaneously scandal and 
scrambled eggs — a stroll to Chartres street, to pat- 
ronize those fashionable modistes^ Olympic and 
Scanlan, where are found the most exquisite ma- 
terial for ball dresses, the most superb laces, em- 
broideries and artificial flowers on this side of the 
Atlantic. 

At dinner takes place the grand daylight display. 



DINNER-DEESSINa ART. 155 

Here it is that the ambition, the ostentation, the 
panting struggle for superiority in mere external 
appearance, which is the essence of the life of a 
fashionable woman, is displayed. The labor ex- 
pended by Thomson upon his " Seasons," Powers 
on his statues, or Longfellow on his poems, which 
startle and illuminate the world, is all surpassed by 
the pains of care, the agonies of anxiety, lavished 
by the fashionable woman upon her costume de 
diner. It is here the perfection of art, the highest 
effect of human shrewdness, in fact, the loftiest re- 
sult of feminine genius written in velvets, silks, 
laces and ribbons, becomes resplendently apparent ; 
and when the various fabrics and products of art are 
used sparingly and discreetly, to heighten and bring 
out the effects of a woman's natural charms and 
gifts of person, dress rises to the dignity of an art, 
and becomes the worthy object of the employment 
and the ambition of those only natural artists, the 
women. You can not deny that it is dazzling, if 
you are forced to confess it is folly. 

In this magnificent hotel are located for the sea- 
son, Mrs. M of Kentucky, the widow of Judge 

J. J. M . Sbe has been for many years a prc- 

siduig genius of fashion and society, a lady of great 



156 MRS. GENERAL GAINES. 

cultivation and conversational powers. We have 
the handsome and -world-renowned Mrs. General 

G , and her amiable daughter. The pleasing 

and distinguished Mrs. M , Mrs. P , and 

the pretty Mrs. H , of New York, Mrs. Colo- 
nel L J of Louisiana, who is the embodiment of 

elegance, grace and accomplishments, and also her 
sweet daughter, who is the reigning belle of the 
season. Their presence amidst the gayeties of the 
Saint Charles will throw an unwonted charm and 
fascination over the whole scene. 

On the 17th ultimo the Supreme Court of Louis- 
iana decided the celebrated case of that heroic and 
admirable lady, Mrs. General Gaines, in her favor. 
The last will of the once lordly Daniel Clark, 
charged to have been destroyed — the will of 1813, 
recognizing the legitimacy of Myra Clark Gaines, 
has been ordered by the court of last resort, in this 
State, to be admitted to probate and executed. The 
effect of this decision will be to give Mrs. Gaines 
the title to one of the largest estates in this coun- 
try — an estate of millions. I know of no one into 
whose hands such vast possessions could be placed 
who could use them with a nicer judgment. The 
unparalleled zeal and earnestness with which this 



MRS. GENERAL GAINES. 157 

amiable ladj has prosecuted her claim has not been 
prompted by a desire for money, a love for power 
and fortune ; her pure and noble heart wished to 
vindicate the sacredness of her origin — to establish 
her status — to redeem the fair fame of those to 
whom she owed her existence. This attainment 
cheered the dark hours of her affliction, and sup- 
ported her under many oppressive disappointments 
and rebuffs. Procrastination, so fatal to sanguine 
hearts, had no violent dread for her noble spirit. 
Feeling the justness of her claim, she arose from 
every disappointment with renewed hope, life, and 
vigor. With a faith almost amounting to reality, 
she expended her fortunes, her energies, the vigor 
of her mind, the best years of life, prosecuting her 
claim, displaying a perseverance, constancy and 
fortitude, which justly entitle her to rank among 
the heroines of history. The persecution of her 
enemies in her ceaseless toil in prosecuting this 
complicated litigation, would have appalled a sterner 
heart. She has surmounted all in honor. The de- 
votion of this noble, spirited women, amidst all her 
trials, never lessened towards her husband and chil- 
dren. To know Mrs. Gaines is to love and admire 
her. She has carried her misfortune, as few know 



158 THE NEW CUSTOM HOUSE. 

how to carry their fortunes, with cheerfulness and 
moderation. 

The new custom house, New Orleans, in process 
of erection, was commenced October 23, 1848, the 
plan of Mr. A. T. Wood, architect, having been 
adopted November 22, 1847, by the Hon. Kobert 
J. "Walker, Secretary of the Treasury. The form 
of this building is a trapezium of 87,333 square 
feet, or about two acres, being about 30,000 feet 
greater than the Capitol at Washington without the 
extension. The four fronts are faced with granite 
ashlar, plain and massive in style, alike in distribu- 
tion, and of about the following dimensions : 

Canal street front 334 feet. 

Old Levee 196 " 

New Levee 310 " 

Custom House street 251 " 

and averaging about eighty-five feet in height. The 
floors of the second and third stories are carried by 
massive joined arches of brick, most carefully ex- 
ecuted. The fourth floor will be of iron, and also 
the roof In the center of the building will be the 
collector's room, one hundred and sixteen feet by 
ninety, of pure white marble, with an anterior 
peristyle of fourteen marble columns and double- 



THE NEW CUSTOM HOUSE. 159 

faced entablatures, from the fine example of the 
Choragic monument of Ljsicrates. The whole will 
be surmounted by a dome and lantern, rising to the 
height of one hundred and thirty feet. The build- 
ing, when completed, will contain within its ample 
area, five apartments for the post office. United 
States courts and land offices, in addition to the 
offices and all the storage room required for the 
collection of the revenue at this port ; and it may 
be remarked that several magnificent apartments in 
the basement and second stories have already been 
turned over to the appraisers of the customs, af- 
fording the amplest facilities for that branch of the 
service. The building has already cost about one 
and a half millions of dollars, and another million 
will probably complete it, in about two and a half 
to three years. The force varies according to the 
amount of material received from contractors ; from 
one hundred to two hundred hands are employed, 
and no pains have been spared by the present com- 
missioners, A. G. Penn and Major G. T. Beaure- 
gard, sustained by the Hon. James Guthrie, Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, in expediting the completion of 
this largest and most perfectly arranged structure 
ever assigned in this country to the revenue service. 



160 FREE SCHOOLS. 

I notice, with no ordinary feelings of gratifica- 
tion, they have here an admirable system of com- 
mon or free school education, far superior to that 
of many of the other southern States. The public 
exhibition of the high school graduating classes, 
which came off last week in Lyceum Hall, did 
much credit to all engaged in this system of school 
education. The subjects for composition were well 
chosen, written and delivered in a style which would 
have done honor to those of riper years. I have 
not room in this letter for detail, but I would re- 
mark the one by Alfred W. P., "The Resources 
of the South," and ''The Progress of Science," by 
Miss Fannie E., and also ''The Uses of Knowl- 
edge," by Miss Eliza B., were compositions worthy 
highly intellectual minds. I am glad that Louis- 
iana has set, in this most important question, an 
example for her sister States. 



XXII. 

Steamee Magnolia, Mississippi River, February, 1856. 

The steam is up, the bell has rung^ and I am 
again sailing down the Mississippi on one of those 
fine packets of the lower trade. These surpass 
most of the Louisville boats, which are much finer 
and more comfortable than most boats we have 
North. The day is lovely, and the magnificent 
steamer sweeps the water of this noble stream with 
a grace and dignity to inspire one with the belief 
that she is the queen of steamers. A soft, lively 
wind is blowing from the south, and every thing is 
swaying about lazily and peacefully in the breeze, 
while the blue sky, mottled with soft whit.e clouds, 
bends down and smiles lovingly from above. My 
compagnons de voyage seem kind, sociable, and 
obliging, and have all the afiability of well-bred 
southerners. A more cheerful tone of feeling per- 
vades the saloon. There is more deference paid to 



162 SUNSET. 

ladies among southern travelers than among north- 
ern. Southerners are a warm-hearted people, and 
study the comfort of others, which is the only true 
politeness. At the North speculation seems to have 
become an institution of the land. In ordinary in- 
tercourse of meeting strangers it is observable. A 
northern traveler seems absorbed in thought^ cal- 
culating on the next election, his banking or com- 
mercial pursuits, and too often forgets the cour- 
tesies due to fellow-travelers, though in society 
and among friends they are a polite and well-bred 
people. 

I have just descended from the deck, where I 
have been to promenade for exercise, and had the 
pleasure of watching a real Claude sunset, from its 
glow to its death-shroud. It was a pure southern 
sunset, with all its characteristics — its harmony, its 
grandeur, its loveliness. We were surrounded on 
either side by immense plantations, and the eye 
strayed over their vast expanse. There were the 
dark blue distance, and the deep blue sky ; and the 
last beam of its setting smile was playing upon the 
walls of the neighboring mansions and forming rain- 
bow pictures in the broad stream below. The pur- 
ple and gold of the " dying dolphin" lay soft and 



CAPTAIN THOMPSON. 163 

languid upon the distant wood ; and as I gazed 
upon this glory, I involuntarily exclaimed, "How 
beautiful !" I have seen many rich and varied sun- 
sets at the North, on our lakes and among our 
mountains : they are much more brilliant, and have 
bolder, more confused, unsettled and varied color- 
ing, but they want that soft misty vail which gives 
to the southern sunset its depth, its languor, its re- 
pose. 

Captain Thomason, master of this well-known 
and favorite steamer, has just entered the ladies' 
saloon. He bows gracefully, and pays his respects 
to ,Mrs. Pre wett, editress of the Yazoo Banner^ a 
lady who displays a fund of cleverness, of common 
sense, of practical business-like habits. I am told 
her journal rendered its party great service in the 
last fall's campaign. 

Sunday, 24. — Our dinner to-day was a sumptu- 
ous affair, served in great elegance and taste. Cap- 
tain Thomason is as au fait as a master. of cere- 
monies at his table, as he is skillful in command ; 
and if one wishes to realize the pleasure of steam- 
ing on the Mississippi, they should make a trip on 
the Magnolia. 

Monday, 25. — We arrived in New Orleans be- 



164 THE SAINT CHARLES HOTEL. 

fore sunrise. It is a delightful morning. Mingled 
with the immense shipping of this port lay scattered 
around us, and gliding in gracefully at every pass- 
way, barges and boats freighted with all the trop- 
ical fruits and magnificent shells, arranged in the 
most picturesque order, which the boatmen, in red 
caps, offer, in French, Spanish, and bad English, 
for sale to travelers. The wharf seems a mountain 
of cotton bales. 

I have driven to the Saint Charles. Not a va- 
cant room in the house. Fifty persons waitmg in 
the reception-room, who have hurried up from the 
boats and railway, relying upon the old adage, 
" First come, first served." My chance seems 
rather a slim one, not making the first scramble. 
However, the agreeable landlord says if I will wait 
until night he will try and find me a place, and 
with that promise no one ever leaves this house. I 
never before saw such a crowd of gayety and fash- 
ion in one house. I am informed on good authority 
that the proprietors of this excellent hotel have real- 
ized as a profit a thousand dollars per day for the 
last three months ; but how they manage to make 
every one so comfortable and happy in this great 
caravansery of fashion I can't imagine. 



THE SAINT CHARLES HOTEL. 165 

All who love society, pleasure and comfort never 
fail in winter to pass a few weeks in New Orleans. 
The majority go to this house ; and I am not sur- 
prised that the Saint Charles has become so widely 
known, and always well filled under its able man- 
agement, although two other first-class hotels are 
in the city. 

Tuesday morning^ 26. — The city is unusually 
healthy — weather charming, and business brisk. 
A masked ball came ofi" at the Saint Louis last 
night. I am told it was well attended. One of 
my New York friends tells me he was dread- 
fully quizzed, and can't imagine who the taunt- 
ing witch was. Bal Masque is racy, grand and 
brilliant. Amicability reigns supreme. '' Give 
and take" is the motto. A hasty " pardon" is 
sufficient atonement for a ruined chapeau, a torn 
robe or a stolen mouchoir. 

At this house last night we had a h(5p. The 
ladies were dressed charmingly. There is no 
place, save Paris, where ball dresses are so ex- 
quisitely beautiful as here. There is not that 
great struggle for preeminence at fashionable 
gatherings here as at the North. The spirit of 
exclusiveness, so paralyzing in its influencCj which 



166 THE SAINT CHARLES HOTEL. 

makes everybody so uncomfortable, and half neu- 
tralizes the pleasure of a sojourn at a fashionable 
place, is never experienced in well-bred society 
South. 



XXIII. 

Washingtox Hotel, Vicksbueg, Marcli 14, 1856. 

The day is delightful, weather perfect, and the 
first pleasant one since I reached here. I leave to- 
day for ]\Iemphis, waiting for the Ingomar, one of 
the New Orleans and Memphis packets. She was 
due here last evening, but owing to the heavy fogs 
on the river, the boats at night are often detained 
for hours, and sometimes the whole night. The 
weather has been so unfavorable during my stay 
here I have seen but little of the city. It is a 
place of enterprise and business, and the location 
one of the prettiest on the river. It is situated 
upon a high bluff, having many terraced stalks, and 
grounds fringed with shade trees, and squares filled 
with shrubbery and beautiful flowers, and for some 
distance around the country is dotted over with 
neat and handsome mansions. The city has many 
fine churches and edifices of a good deal of arch- 



168 VICKSBURG. 

itectural taste and beauty. When the railroads are 
completed which are to center here, Vicksburg will 
advance more rapidly than at present. No city of 
her population can boast of better accommodations 
for strangers. She supports two large, well-man- 
aged, first-class hotels, one of which, the Washing- 
ton Hotel, for comfort, convenience and neatness, is 
not surpassed by any. It is under the able man- 
agement of General McMackin, whose kind, be- 
nevolent smile, and polite attentions, make all his 
guests feel at home. His table is a sumptuous 
one, and the waiters are innumerable, and the best 
trained, I have met South. 

Two or three blocks from the hotel, which is but 
one from the river, the view of the country and 
river, for sixty miles around, or as far as the eye 
can reach, is peerless, and the water to-day is 
sparkling with sunbeams. Boats built for use dis- 
play only ease and grace in form and motion. The 
opposite shore is Louisiana, and presents to the eye 
an expanse of low, flat ground. I am told, from 
Baton Rouge to Memphis, a distance of six hun- 
dred and fifty miles, on either side of the river, is 
the finest cotton region in the United States. The 
income of many a planter in this section, from his 



COTTON LANDS. 169 

cotton alone, is eighty or a hundred thousand dol- 
lars per year. Many of them live in magnificent 
style, visit New Orleans every winter, where they 
pass two or three months in gayety and fashion, 
and, I assure you, I think there is no place in 
this country where they could kill time more 
agreeably. 

The Yicksburg, Shreveport and Texas Raiboad 
is opposite this place. The country which will 
become tributary to this road when finished has 
suffered a loss, I am told, in consequence of inac- 
cessibility to market. That portion of the road 
lying between Vicksburg and Monroe crosses a 
body of bottom lands second to none in the world 
of the same extent for capability of producing fine 
staple cotton. Most of those lands, it is said, are 
almost valueless for the want of an outlet to mar- 
ket. The whole of the north of Louisiana will be 
made accessible to emigrants from the old States, 
and, west of Red river, it reaches out to ^rasp the 
immejise trade of Texas and bring it to the Missis- 
sippi. Its geographical position is such as to mo- 
nopolize at once the entire travel between Texas 
and the States east of the Mississippi; and to 
Vicksburg, whose citizens have so nobly contributed 



170 UPPER AND LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 

to the enterprise, its advantages can not be too 
highly estimated, as travel must pass through 
here. 

I have just been called to the balcony to look at 
the steamboat New World, from Arkansas. She 
is freighted with five thousand bales of cotton; 
her guards and hurricane deck are perfectly cov- 
ered, no unusual sight at this season. The Mis- 
sissippi is navigable twenty-one hundred miles ; 
passing a small portage, three thousand may be 
achieved. It embraces the productions of many 
climates. 

The upper Mississippi, a mining country, 
abounds in coal, lead, iron and copper, in veins 
of wonderful richness ; and on the lower Missis- 
sippi the climate is favorable to almost all the 
productions of the tropics. The sugar, the cotton 
plant, the orange, the lemon, the grape, the ba- 
nana, the mulberry, tobacco, rice, maize, sweet 
potato, all flourish in rich abundance, and some 
of them attain to a luxuriance of growth scarcely 
known in any other part of the world. Sugar 
and cotton are the two great staples. The form- 
er is confined chiefly to that tract which, by way 
of distinction, is called "the coast,'' lying along 



RIVER TRAVELING. 171 

the shores of the Gulf, and the bayous of the 
Mississippi. 

March 15. — The Ingomar did not reach the 
wharf until after midnight. We had a pleasant 
moonlight drive to the river, and going on board 
found the steamer, which is a large boat, with su- 
perior accommodations. 

March 16. — The weather is clear and fine, 
and as warm as the middle of May at the 
North. The steamer has made a good run 
to-day, with the exception of a short deten- 
tion, caused by a big log getting caught in the 
wheel, when she was obliged to put back two 
miles and a half, and run ashore to cut it 
out. The river is now almost covered with 
drift, still it but slightly impedes navigation, 
and causes no serious accidents. In the ladies' 
saloon, last night, we had conversation, music, 
dancing, and whist. All was conducted in such 
good taste it seemed more hke a party of 
friends than travelers accidentally tlirown to- 
gether. 

I often wish an abolitionist would come South 
and make a trip on a Mississippi packet, for 
I think he would acknowledge that the black 



172 BLESSINGS OF SLAVERY. 

waiters and attendants on these boats, all of 
whom are slaves, are the best dressed, the best 
cared for, and happiest working class he had 
met ; and the servants, too, who are traveling 
with their masters and mistresses, are invaria- 
bly neatly and handsomely dressed, and, I may 
add, look fat and lazy. They go to the second 
table, and are given every delicacy on it; joke 
and laugh, and, I assure you, seem very little 
like the oppressed, down-trodden race they are 
represented to be by northern abolitionists. The 
blacks are very communicative, if you give them 
an oppportunity. I sometimes talk with them, 
and have often asked them if they would like 
to be free. They say, " Oh, no ! missus, I 's 
do n't want to be free ; massa and missus takes 
good care of us, and we 's a heap better off than 
free niggers." This is their general response 
when interrogated about freedom. So far from 
the institution being guilty of degrading the 
negro, and keeping him in degradation, it has 
elevated him in the scale of being far above Ids 
brethren in Africa, and is continuing to do so. 
I feel that no people have been more misrep- 



SOUTHERN SLAYEHOLDEilS. 173 

resented, and have had more injustice done them 
than southern slaveholders. We are safely at 
Memphis. I must close and get ready to go 
ashore. 



XXIV. 

mox$)^nm "gaxm. — eaiting for u foat — Pss Wnx- 

"WoBSHAM HotrsE, Memphis, March 22, 1856. 

I REACHED here on the 17th instant. I have 
seen but little of the city, merely the center, where 
business has called me. I am told by Mr. D., to 
whom I brought letters of introduction, that the an- 
nual exports from this place (mostly cotton,) are 
twelve millions a year — that business increases faster 
than the population, which is about eighteen thou- 
sand. This city has appropriated a large fund and 
has a fine system of free school education. Four 
railroads are commenced that are to center here. 
The progress made in the construction of public works 
in the southern States is slow, and the benefits 
which every day's experience proves would be con- 
ferred on the States by their early completion ren- 
der the subject, I should think, one of chief impor- 



BANKS AND BACHELORS. 175 

tance to their public policy, but they seem to shrink 
from a vigorous activity amidst the general progress 
of the nation, and fail to form a just contempla- 
tion of their own necessities. 

If in railroads and manufactures Memphis is be- 
hind the age, she can boast of more banks and bach- 
elors than any other city in the Union of its size. 
I am told there are twenty bachelors to one young 
lady, and at least a dozen banks, though there are 
very few bank bills in circulation that are redeem- 
able here. She maintains five daily newspapers, 
all edited with ability, and two of w^hich are very 
sprightly ones. With reading such journals her 
citizens can but be intelligent. 

There are quite a number of pretty ladies here ; 
but in some instances I observe bad taste in costume. 
They wear too many gay and light colors in street 
costume, and not always harmoniously arranged, 
which, instead of heightening and bringing out 
the effects of a woman's charms and natttral gifts of 
person, detract therefrom. Grave colors are much 
more elegant and becoming, as well as suitable for 
street dresses. When the various light and gay- 
colored fabrics are used in dress, they should be ar- 
ranged artistically so as not to offend the eye. In 



176 WAITING FOR A BOAT. 

dress a lady should cultivate taste, and have genius 
to adapt her costume to herself and her own pecu- 
liar order of beauty. Dressing expensively and 
magnificently when not tastefully arranged, is a 
mere barbarian luxury. 

Memphis is destined in a few years to be next in 
a commercial point of view on the Mississippi to St. 
Louis, and is now a fine city, but without much 
architectural style in building. It w^ould be a great 
improvement to the place if her streets were graded 
and walks better paved. The reason of the delay, 
I am told, is because they have no material of which 
to compose them, there being no rock within a hun- 
dred miles of the city. 

This place supports two large hotels, of which the 
Worsham House is said to be the best. It is neat, 
well-appointed and kept — an excellent table, and 
polite attendance. Mr. Worsham, the landlord, is 
an agreeable gentleman, and superintends this fine 
establishment, and is ever on the look-out to make 
his guests comfortable. 

Monday morning^ March 24. — I have been 
waiting, for the last forty-eight hours, in bonnet, 
mantle, and gloves, for the steamer Niagara to take 
me up the river. She has just passed, and I am 



MISS MURRAY. 177 

left, although she stopped at the wharf some time. 
I have expended hreath enough, in the last two 
days, talking to the big black porter, to put me on 
that boat when she came, and not let me be left, 
had it been steam, to have brought her up from New 
Orleans. In a perfect frenzy of disappointment and 
despair, I am back in my room again, whose walls 
and appointments now look as gloomy as a hearse 
in yellow fever time. 

Now, Mr. Editor, it is not a very pleasant thing 
to eat in bonnet and gloves, and sleep in one's 
chair forty-eight hours, for fear of missing a boat, 
and hear fifty-nine steamboat whistles a day, gather 
up a well-filled satchel, extra shawl and book, run 
down stairs, and when at the foot be told " it ain't 
your boat" — walk back to your room with a rack- 
ing headache, sad, gloomy, and weary with disap- 
pointment, and waiting to conjugate, like the Great 
Frederic, the verb '' Ennnyer'^ — or open Miss Mur- 
ray's book to read, which is dull and uninteresting, 
and some of its information about as correct as a 
hotel porter's. However, there 's one thing I ad- 
mire, the justness with which she speaks of the 
South and their domestic institutions. 

When the Niagara was finally announced, I step- 



178 LEFT. 

ped into the hack in ecstasy and gratitude — feeling 
on good terms with the whole world — drove one 
block, and to my great horror saw the boat sailing 
off with as much grace and complacency as if she 
had taken every thing on board that wanted to go. 
Her officers on deck looking independent, and I in 
despair looking at the huge monster, wishing I had 
a cable to hold her fast. No use hoisting a flag of 
distress. I was on land high and dry, and she 
would n't put back for a tear drowning. When I 
reproached the porter for his tardiness, the cold- 
hearted fellow actually smiled ; but I believe more 
in pity than at my disappointment ; for he says he 
sat up all night watching for her, and had fallen 
asleep at ten this morning when she came. Weather 
delightful — the sky without a cloud, but time hor- 
rible to endure. I have tried every thing — but every 
thing seems wearisome — reading is a bore — writing 
is laborious — the desire to proceed — the certainty 
of delay, all tend to create an irritability of temper 
if any woman could resist, would deserve the name 
of Angel-ina. I'll tell you what it is, I'll send 
for the porter and give him a fresh set of orders — 
turn stoic and philosopher, and go to sleep if I can 



OFF. 179 

— no water craft whistle shall disturb my nerves for 
the next twelve hours. 

Tuesday evening, March 25. — After a refresh- 
ing night's sleep and an idle day, I am on board the 
Tishamingo, bound for Louisville, She is a fine 
steamer, full of passengers, and her master. Captain 
Baiscoe, has the reputation of a careful and skill- 
ful commander. Mr. Levi, her clerk, is a gentle- 
man whose kind and benevolent smile makes all the 
wayfarers feel quite at ease about comfort and safe- 
ty, and every thing bespeaks a pleasant trip. 



XXY. 

^asIjbilU.— ^Ije ^Me ^nptol—WinikxBxt^ oi gl'asljbille.— 
^^ fume fi^Ij ^tljooL— Ciig foM. 

City Hotel, Nashville, April 11, 1856. 

Nashville is located upon a rocky site — an 
eminence, some points of which rise two hundred 
feet above the level of the Cumberland river. The 
scenery surrounding it is very beautiful, watered 
by a river capable of floating steamers of medium 
size, winding through the valley, or making its way 
through red sand-stone hills, to which must be 
added the rich and varied foliage of the South. 
The streets are finely graded, and the walks hand- 
somely flagged in the vicinity of the private resi- 
dences ; but in some of the principal business streets 
it is the reverse, for which, by the way, there is no 
excuse, with a superfluous abundance of material 
within half a mile of the city. Another fault I 
observe is a bad system of drainage. Slops are 
thrown into the alleys, and, without any excuse, 



THE STATE CAPITOL. 181 

there suffered to remain ; for, besides the descent to 
the river, I am told there are no less than three 
caves under the citj, one of which underlies a por- 
tion of the center, and has its mouth on the river 
bluff. This could be made available bj introducing 
a sewer into it, and, I would imagine, comparative- 
ly speaking, at small expense. They have as yet 
but one railroad completed, the Chatanooga, of 
which the freight-house and buildings at the depot 
are fine. 

If in some things Nashville may be called "old 
fogy," and a little behind the age, she can boast of 
the finest State capitol, now nearly finished, in the 
Union. The site of this building could not be more 
beautiful. Imagine a hill in the center of a city, 
rising two hundred feet above the level of the Cum- 
berland river, at this place, four feet of its crest be- 
ing removed, leaving a plateau of solid limestone for 
the foundation of the building. At your feet you 
overlook the city, and the view beyond i§ bounded 
on all sides by a far distant amphitheater of moun- 



tam ranges. 



It is of the Grecian order of architecture, consist- 
ing of a Doric basement, supporting on its four 
fronts porticoes of the Ionic order. The structure 



182 THE STATE CAPITOL. 

is composed of fossilated and beautifully-variegated 
limestone, hewn and chiseled from quarries in the 
neighborhood of Nashville. In the center and 
above the roof, rises a tOAver to the height of eighty- 
one feet, the superstructure of which is after the 
order of the Choragic monument of Lysicrates, at 
Athens. The ceilings are arched throughout, and, 
I am told, the halls and chambers are pleasant to 
speak in, and excellent for sound. The laws of 
acoustics can not be too carefully studied in con- 
structing public edifices. The rafters are of wrought 
iron, supported by interior walls, the whole covered 
with thick sheets of copper. A cast iron stairway 
leads from the roof to the top of the tower, which is 
intended, when finished, for an observatory. 

The hall of the Representatives contains sixteen 
, fluted columns of the Roman Ionic order, two feet 
eight inches in diameter, and twenty-one feet ten 
inches in height. The shafts or columns of these 
are all in one piece. The forum of the House of 
Representatives consists of a semicircular platform, 
three feet in height, forming three steps, upon 
which there is a screen of East Tennessee marble, 
surmounted by an eagle resting upon a shield of 
cast iron, bronzed and gilt. One foot from each 



THE STATE CAPITOL. 183 

end of the screen, on a die of black marble, the 
Roman fasces are placed, which are of beautifully- 
variegated East Tennessee marble. 

The Senate chamber is of an oblong form, having 
pilasters of the Ionic order, with a full entablature. 
The ceilings of this room are formed into radiating 
panels. There is a gallery on three sides of the 
room, supported by twelve columns of variegated 
East Tennessee marble, with white capitals and 
black bases, from the Erectheum. The forum in 
this room consists of a platform of two steps. The 
speaker's and clerk's desks are of fine East Tennes- 
see marble. 

The doors and windows, which are of a large 
size, are all of solid white oak, molded, paneled 
and ornamented with devices. The windows are all 
double, divided by stone pilasters, enriched with 
consoles, ovolo and spears. The glass is of a supe- 
rior quality, and was made at the works near Knox- 
ville. East Tennessee. I am told all of the mate- 
rials of which this magnificent structure is composed 
were furnished by the State of Tennessee. All the 
floors are grain-arched, and flagged with rubbed 
stone. Hanging scone steps throughout the build- 
ing. The building is in the form of a parallelo- 



184 THE UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE. 

gram^ surrounded by a terrace flagged with stone, 
with flights of steps in the center of each front, op- 
posite the doors of entrance. Twenty-eight fluted 
columns, four feet eight inches in diameter, orna- 
menting the four porticoes, with most elaborate 
wrought capitals. The north and south porticoes 
are finished with pediments, containing ceilings of 
stone, and the east and west porticoes are sur- 
mounted by parapets. Those of the north and 
south are octo style and those of the east and west 
hepas style. Francis W. Strickland, the archi- 
tect, has immortalized his name with the masterly 
skill and fine taste which he has displayed in the 
design and finish of this magnificent building. The 
grounds are extensive ; and when laid out, and or- 
namented with shrubbery and flowers, this will be 
the most beautiful place in this country. 

I visited the Western Military Institute, now the 
collegiate department of the University of Nash- 
ville, and had the pleasure of making the acquaint- 
ance of that agreeable and highly scientific gentle- 
man. Lieutenant Colonel Richard Owen, command- 
ant and professor of geology and chemistry in this 
Institute. 

The Western Military Institute, incorporated in 



THE UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE. 185 

the State of. Kentucky in 1847, and erected at 
Drennon Springs, during seven years enjoyed in 
that State a very extensive patronage. In 1853, 
with two hundred and thirty students in attend- 
ance, and in public favor through the South and 
West, they found it necessary, on account of un- 
usual sickness, to disband the students. A tempo- 
rary location was made at Tyree Springs, in this 
State. In 1854 it accepted articles of union with 
the University of Nashville, and is now the colle- 
giate or literary department of that institute. 

The institute has already passed successfully 
through its first session at Nashville, Avith one hun- 
dred and twenty matriculants, and the half session 
just opened indicates the probability of a consider- 
able increase. 

The number of volumes in the libraries of the 
university is about fourteen thousand ; it has also a 
chemical apparatus, a handsome cabinet of miner- 
als, fossils and other specimens of natural history, 
arranged in the most scientific and perfect order by 
Professor Owen, with casts, maps and diagrams, 
and a good collection of mathematical and philo- 
sophical instruments, which afford superior facili- 
ties to the student in the elucidation of the princi- 



186 THE UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE. 

pies of several branches of science. Their method 
of teaching is a most excellent one, all that is 
possible being presented to the mind through the 
eye. 

The collegiate department is located upon a 
lovely site, with extensive grounds, about a mile 
from the city. The buildings consist of a magnifi- 
cent stone edifice, an imposing brick building three 
stories high, of a style of architecture in harmony 
with the stone edifice, and a large brick building 
for the accommodation of professors and their fami- 
lies, with a wing attached one hundred and thirty- 
two feet long, containing dining hall, kitchen, 
laundry, store and shops for the accommodation of 
professors and students. As a whole, I am much 
pleased with this institute. At present. Professor 
Owen is laying out on the college grounds a geo- 
logical garden, which is to represent, geographic- 
ally, both the mineral and vegetable productions 
of each State in the Union. It will be the means 
of affording amusement and great instruction to the 
students. 

Parents in this country, where there is a great 
lack of athletic exercises, would, in educating their 
sons, find it to their advantage to have superadded 



I 



THE HUME HIGH SCHOOL 187 

to the collegiate course, military instruction, yet I 
would not recommend it so much for the present 
organization, as the personal, physical, and moral 
advantages attained by military exercise and mili- 
tary discipline. Compared with the military drill, 
no system of physical training ever devised is bet- 
ter adapted to the student. It takes him from his 
Books, over which he has been bending for hours, 
brings him to an erect position, gives him a firm, 
graceful, manly carriage, expands his chest, puts 
into harmonious action every limb and muscle, and 
thus promotes a perfect physical development, and 
a consequent increase of mental vigor, and also 
promotes three great moral principles — obedience, 
subordination, and method. 

A few years since the corporate authorities of 
Nashville established a public school, free to all 
residing in the corporate limits. It is called Hume 
High School, to perpetuate the memory of a cel- 
ebrated teacher of that name, lately deceased. I 
am told the school is in a most prosperous condi- 
tion, provided with the very best teachers, and the 
hearts of thousands of the recipients are already 
made glad and grateful for this great blessing. 

In traveling over this whole extent of country, I 



188 CITY HOTEL. 

have seldom, if ever, found better or more superior 
accommodation for strangers than at the City Hotel. 
Comfortable apartments, well ventilated; prompt at- 
tention from polite and well-drilled servants ; and a 
table bountifully supplied with good things — sub- 
stantial, varieties, and delicacies, that this fine 
surrounding country about Nashville affords. No 
more agreeable gentlemen, and kind host, can any- 
where be found than Mr. Scott, the proprietor, and 
his superintendent, Mr. Foss, formerly of New York, 
a gentleman of superior education and intelligence. 
They receive strangers with such polite, easy and 
fine manners as to make them feel at once they are 
in a superior house. I take pleasure in commend- 
ing this house to strangers visiting Nashville, and 
feel sure all who go there will find true what I have 
said in its favor. 

This city has many handsome private residences 
tastefully furnished, some in sumptuous and mag- 
nificent style, and all surrounded by beautifully 
laid out grounds which give them a look of retire- 
ment and repose, and they are more like the splen- 
did palaces of opulence and rank, surrounded by the 
gardens of fashion, than the habitations of a repub- 
lican city. Those persons I had the pleasure of 



THUNDER STORM. 189 

meeting were highly educated and intelligent, and 
many very accomplished. I made the acquaintance 
of Mrs. Frances B. Fogg, who is at the head of the 
literary and fashionable coteries of Nashville, and 
also an authoress, possessing rare accomplishments 
and the best qualities of heart and mind, combined 
with a joyous and genial disposition, and no one 
can approach her without feeling it. 

Saturday, April 12. — I am again on my way 
to Louisville, on board the ''Rock City," a Nash- 
ville and Paducah packet. She is a fine boat. 
Captain Egan, her commander, a pleasant gentle- 
man ; and we have a fair prospect of a fine sail to 
the mouth of the river, where we must reship for 
Louisville. 

The two past days have been oppressively hot in 
Nashville, with a wind blowing almost a simoom, 
bearing upon its wings clouds of dust, much to the 
discomfiture of pedestrians. A flash of lightning, 
a roll of thunder, and the big rain-drops are pour- 
ing c«i the deck. The cloud-capped hills are per- 
fectly lighted up by the electric chain ; the hoarse 
thunder re-echoes in every valley. It is one of 
those scenes which, being of God himself, alone de- 
serves the epithets of grandeur and sublimity that 



190 MOONLIGHT SCENE. 

ambitious man is so prone to heap upon the insig- 
nificant and filagree nothingness that he calls the 
evidences of his creative genius. The breathing 
statue, the glowing canvas, the gorgeous temple, 
what are thej all compared to the inexhaustible sea 
of light streaming upon us from yon clouds, hung 
like dark curtains over the heavens, as if to shut 
out from mortal eyes the holy mysteries of the 
hour ! 

The celestial scene has passed, and the clouds, 
bleached of their dark and flaming hues, are fading 
behind the invisible curtains of the air. The moon, 
just rounded to the fall outline of her beauty, is 
slowly creeping up from the east, her sweet face 
and silvery light are partially vailed by a soft cloud 
crossing her path. The stars are coming out in 
many clusters to wink and sparkle. Diana, in her 
most dazzling light, with the little dim-eyed crea- 
tures that ever wait submissive at her side. Good 
night. The thousands of wondering faces which 
have been mutely upturned to heaven to witness 
the magnificent scene, must now seek their pillows 
and their dreams, and the noiseless universe will go 
its way. 

Monday^ April 14. — Yesterday we were fortu- 



STEAMER NIAGARA. 191 

nate in meeting at Smithland, and reshipped with- 
out delay to the steamer Niagara, the identical boat 
that left me with such nonchalance at Memphis a 
few weeks since. I can not close without paying a 
well merited eulogy to this boat. Heretofore, I 
have had a dislike to steamboat traveling, my im- 
pressions arising from experience on northern boats, 
which are smaller, and accommodations much in- 
ferior to southern ones. Imagine an immense boat, 
neat as a quaker household, with a succession of 
saloons, furnished in the most luxurious style ; 
state rooms with all the comforts and appointments 
of a home chamber ; tables arranged width-wise the 
saloon, suitable for a party of a dozen, set with rich 
plate, crystal, and china, and furnished with the 
most sumptuous fare — all the appetizing luxuries 
that can be purchased in the markets of New 
Orleans and Louisville, cooked and served in per- 
fect order and elegance. Breakfast served from 
seven to ten o'clock; dinner, from two to four; tea 
at six ; and supper at any time during the night ; 
and you will have a fair picture and some idea of 
the steamer Niagara. Captain Spotts, in his skill- 
ful command, has won an enviable reputation. Cap- 
tain Charles F. Reynolds, the chief clerk is a Ken- 



192 - STEAMER NIAaARA. 

tuckian, and possesses in a high degree the fine 
qualities of the Kentucky gentleman. Mr. Bar- 
clay, his assistant, is a gallant young man, of kind 
and obliging manners. 



XXVI. 

iaiiting gofow nt gigljt iit gefa ^oxk — ^z mint 
Itkljolas Jot el — |ts €^1ent anb ^u^mktntt, 

St. Nicholas Hotel, New York, May 26, 1856. 

Well, here I am at last, and after drawing a 
very long breath, I sit down to inform you of my 
safe arrival. Did you or any of your readers, by 
the way, ever reach New York at twelve o'clock at 
night, and in a rain storm ? Well, I have — I know 
the beauties of the scene, and some of its more hid- 
eous aspects. Just imagine a woman, shaken all 
day on the Harlem railroad, arriving in this city of 
mud, misery, and magnificence, at midnight, with 
no attendant — the skies dark, gloomy, forbidding, 
and constantly pouring down upon the devoted pave- 
ment such a torrent of rain as is only known in 
June showers. Then drive to one hotel, and be told 
by the surly clerk, as he rubs his eyes in amaze- 
ment to see a "lone female" at that hour of the 
night requesting shelter — ''all full." Then try 
another, with the same result. A third, and ditto j 
9 



194 RAINING DOWN AT NIGHT IN NEW YORK. 

and finally resolve, in a fit of desperation, to go to 
the biggest house in town, the place where it is 
said they can accommodate the Congress of the 
United States, the Parliament of England, the As-' 
semblies of France, &c., &c., &c. This I did, and 
happy was I in being allowed to rest my weary body. 
All honor, I say, to a hotel that does not get full, 
I have been thinking what a journey I have had, 
to be sure. Let me see — I have been in twelve dif- 
ferent States since last December, and visited the 
cities of Louisville, Erankfort, Lexington, Nash- 
ville, Memphis, Natchez, Baton Rouge, New Or- 
leans. Montgomery, Mobile, Jackson, and St. Louis, 
to say nothing of other places nearer home. The 
Mississippi river has become almost as familiar as the 
pretty little brook in the country on whose banks, 
in the sunny hours of childhood, I used to gather 
the violet and the lily. There is no danger, how- 
ever, of my ever mistaking the one for the other. 
The banks of the country stream, perfumed with its 
verdant borders of "brookmint," bear no resem- 
blance to the turbid river which rolls its wealth of 
waters so majestically along, creating, as it were^ 
just for its own spiteful amusement, sand-bars and 
snags wherewith to try the patience of those who 



KAININO DOWN AT NIGHT IN NEW YORK. 195 

navigate it. But southerners have patience. Did 
you ever think of that fact? Why, northerners 
could no more get along with the negroes of the 
South than they could make one. 

Of all the dumbest, inefficient humans in the 
world, I will set up negroes as the cap-sheaf. They 
are essentially children. For instance, I would tell 
the servant, when stopping at a hotel, that I wanted 
such or such a thing done at a particular time. But 
it was useless ; she never did it. There is no use 
of telling me that the negroes have no incitement to 
work. They vfould not work if they were free at 
all^ but live on herbs and snakes, as they do in Af- 
rica. As for educating them, with the exception of 
those who are mulattoes, and thus have more or less 
white blood, you might as well educate an ox, ex- 
pecting to make a horse of him by the process, as 
to educate a negro, expecting you will make him a 
white man. My idea is, if he had ever been in- 
tended to occupy the position of a white man he 
would never have been made black, and that is as 
far as I care about arguing the question with any- 
body. 

Since I returned, I have been looking around, 
and I have come to the unanimous conclusion that, 



196 THE ST. NICHOLAS HOTEL. 

after all, Ne^v York is the greatest city on this con- 
tinent, and bound to be a still greater one ; and, 
what is more, has the greatest hotel. I had often 
been in the parlors of the St. Nicholas in calling 
upon friends in town, but had never before mj rain- 
ing down here the other night been any further ini- 
tiated into this labyrinthian establishment. Since 
then, I have been "investigating," and I must say, 
that for sumptuous magnificence and profuse though 
not gaudy decorations, I have never seen its equal. 
Its proportions are so gigantic that the mind hesitates 
at first to be awed by its efiect, not being willing that 
this sentiment, which only responds to the grand, 
should be stirred into activity by a hotel. But 
when one wanders through its long halls, ascends 
its stairs, treads miniature streets, descends another 
flight, again pursues his way, turns to the right and 
sees rows of doors duly numbered, turns to the left 
and beholds the same, follows on to see the end of 
this puzzle, again ascends to another floor, finds still 
no end, the doors now numbering somewhere away 
up among the hundreds, he comes down again to the 
first floor, sits down and exclaims, "Immense !" 

Besides, however, the size of this house, which, 
of course, surpasses any thing on this continent, 



THE ST. NICHOLAS HOTEL. 197 

and, indeed, in the world, the system and manage- 
ment is, after all, the most important point. Mr. 
Rodgers, the superintendent, who attends to the 
details of the establishment, seems to be one of 
those quiet, semi-omnipresent beings who is all over. 
Go into the parlor, he is there ; into the tea room, 
he is there ; in the dining room, he is there ; in 
fact, Mr. Rodgers, like the man in the play, pops 
up where least expected, but when wanted the most. 
Some twelve hundred people can be comfortably 
accommodated in this prodigious hotel. But if there 
be one thing more than another in which it sur- 
passes even itself, it is in its table de hote. Gas- 
tronomy is here carried to the perfection that it was 
among the Romans, whose cuisnes, we are told, 
could so cook pork as to make the most experienced 
devotee of Bacchus believe he was eating chicken. 
The dining rooms sparkle and shine with the light 
reflected from the most expensive chandeliers, the 
elegant china on the tables, the beautifully frescoed 
walls, the flashing of all the tints of the rainbow 
from the thousand articles of cut glass, lends a 
beauty and harmony to the scene as enchanting as 
the fairy palace of Calypso, which beguiled the 



198 THE ST. NICHOLAS HOTEL. 

youthful Telemachus from his patriotic and filial 
duties. 

But modern magnificence far surpasses all that 
the ignorant old Greeks or Romans ever dreamed 
of. They never thought of gas streaming from a 
thousand burners^ of entire palaces heated by some 
conquered volcano, whose eternal fire has been 
made subservient to man ; and of lightning tele- 
graphs, which "speak and it is done." No; these 
wonders have been left for the nineteenth century, 
and the guests of the Saint Nicholas. And yet 
this house is to be improved ! A space has been 
procured in Mercer street, and ninety new rooms 
are to be added ! Americans may go to Enghsh 
hotels to get surly looks and unsociable manners, 
to French hotels to live on frogs and pastry, to 
German hotels to be smothered between prodigious 
feather beds, and to Italian hotels to be robbed by 
waiters and employees, but in all their travels they 
will never come across so obliging, so convenient, 
so well arranged an establishment as their national 
institution, the Saint Nicholas. 

There is only one more advantage it could pos- 
sibly enjoy to render it the most luxurious and en- 
ticing place on the continent of America ; that is, 



DRESS OF THE LADIES. 199 

the soft, balmy, tropical atmosphere of New Orleans 
in December. Let the fragrance of orange groves 
and the scent of the banana be mingled with the 
mild breath of the tropics, and it produces an en- 
chanting atmosphere, in which the displays of mag- 
nificence are set off to double advantage. The ladies 
here are coming out in their summer dresses, but I 
can not generally praise their taste. There is great 
richness and variety of attire ; but too often real 
elegance is sacrificed to gaudy display, as if the 
art of dressing consisted in the quantity of furbe- 
lows and flounces. Elegance of dress is neatness 
without ostentation, richness without profusion, and 
appropriateness without affectation. 



XXVII. 

|oIitk« m Illinois.— |rospwfs oi Cljitago.— fefij S«ilb- 
iwgs, dt. 

Briggs Hottse, Chicago, July 2, 1856. 

In this State, the political cauldron already be- 
gins to boil. The municipal election in Chicago 
was most strenuously and powerfully contested. 
Being the home of Douglas, every effort was made 
by his enemies to prostrate his influence and defeat 
his friends ; but the exertions of the combined op- 
position were in vain. Honorable Thomas Dyer, 
nominated by the democracy for mayor, on a plat- 
form at once liberal and anti-sectional, was elected 
by a large and decisive majority. It was a blow 
fi'om which the Freesoil Know Nothing fusionists 
can never recover. The nominations of the Cincin- 
nati Convention are received with enthusiasm in 
the Prairie State. The wisdom and patriotism of 
the convention will be amply complimented at the 
presidential election. No section of the country is 



POLITICS OF ILLINOIS. 201 

truer to the Union and the Constitution than the 
mighty and illimitable West. 

It is admitted, generally, that Richardson will 
beat Bissell, for governor, from three to five 
thousand; some of them, however, pretending to 
think there is a chance for the latter, and that 
the contest will be very close. The friends of 
Richardson are sanguine and confident, none claim- 
ing less than twenty or thirty thousand majority. 
From what I hear from the several counties in this 
State, it is more than probable that the entire ticket, 
from Colonel Richardson down, will be triumph- 
antly elected. It is predicted, by those who have 
opportunities of judging, the canvass will be warm 
and exciting throughout the north end and middle 
portions of the State ; and a great change will be 
had from that of the last two years, and at least 
seven or eight of the next Congressmen will be na- 
tional men, in favor of the Nebraska Bill and the 
Constitution. In one third of the counties of the 
State, it will be one-sided — all for Buchanan and 
Breckinridge, Richardson and Hamilton. 

This magic city of the West has trebled its popu- 
lation in the last half dozen years, and claims now 
to be ninety thousand, and its march is still on- 



202 PROSPECTS OP CHICAGO. 

ward. Much as has heen said of the rapid growth 
of this city, extravagant as have seemed the pre- 
dictions heretofore ventured respecting her destiny, 
last year's satistics, I am told, show that the reality 
far exceeds in magnitude the seemingly most wild 
conjectures that have ever yet been indulged in re- 
specting her. No doubt Chicago is the greatest 
primary grain port in the world ; and next to the 
grain trade, that in lumber claims preeminence, 
and maintains a most powerful rivalry. This im- 
portant arm of the prosperity of the manufactures 
of Chicago continues to keep pace with the general 
growth of the city and country, and is destined to 
become a great manufacturing center; the wants 
and capacities of the country with which she is com- 
mercially connected demand it. Her system of rail- 
roads traverse a region unsurpassed in agricultural 
resources ; and while they offer facilities for trans- 
porting the productions of her workshops and fac- 
tories to those who will use them, they also supply 
the means for bringing hither the raw material re- 
quired for their production. 

My first visit to Chicago was in the fall of 
1854, not two years since, and the apparent prog- 
ress of commercial and manufacturing interests is 



203 

not greater than those of city improvements. The 
character and style of new buildings have alto- 
gether changed. Residences have been constructed 
on a scale of substantial magnificence known in but 
few cities west of New York, and where then stood 
buildings decayed and dilapidated, are now to be 
seen immense store-houses, granaries, and blocks of 
stores, built in a style of permanence and dura- 
bility, suggestive of the confidence capitalists have 
in the future greatness of Chicago. There is also 
a great improvement in the residences that grace 
some of the avenues and squares. The " Bishop's 
Palace," as it is called, is a princely residence. It 
is beautifully situated on the corner of Michigan 
avenue and Madison street, and is built of Athens 
marble. Its architectural proportions are grand 
and symmetrical ; four stories high, has two fronts 
and two entrances of a most spacious character. 
It is the residence of Rt. Rev. Dr. 0' Regan, and 
few residences in the United States surpass it. 

The Court House in Chicago is a fine structure, 
built of blue limestone, and of the Doric order, 
though without columns, and standing in the center 
of a handsome square, inclosed by a substantial iron 
railing, and the grounds prettily ornamented with 



204 BUILDING MATERIALS. 

fountains, shade trees and shrubbery. Chicago is 
well supplied with material for building. A few 
feet from the surface the ground yields a fair 
quality of clay, the lake shore supplies any quan- 
tity of sand, and, at reasonable price, can be ob- 
tained the drab-colored Milwaukie brick, which, in 
beauty and durability, yields to no other. But a 
much more elegant material than the latter is found 
in great abundance, about twenty miles from the 
city, on the line of the Illinois canal. It is a lime- 
stone of a pale yellow shade, somewhat lighter than 
the Caen stone now so much sought after for build- 
ing material in New York. The grain is fine, it is 
durable and easily wrought, and the color is pecu- 
liarly pleasing to the eye, and a more beautiful ma- 
terial for building purposes I have never seen. 

Both carriage way and sidewalks are planked. 
There are a few blocks where the planks have been 
removed and replaced with broad flag stones. The 
sidewalks of Chicago are peculiar — a continual suc- 
cession of ups and downs. With almost every block 
of buildings there is a change of grade from one 
foot to five. These ascents and descents are made 
by steps or inclined planes. The reason of this 
diversity is, that it was found necessary to raise 



THE BRIGGS HOUSE. 205 

the grade of the streets, and as each building is 
erected, its foundation, and the sidewalk adjoining 
have been made to correspond to the grade there 
last established. 

Chicago is well supplied with fine, pure water 
from Lake Michigan. At present this city is re- 
markably healthy. It is constantly fanned by pure 
breezes from the lake, a breeze that never sleeps, 
sweeping over hundreds of miles ; and with an effi- 
cient system of sewerage from lake to river, Chi- 
cago will be one of the healthiest cities in the Un- 
ion. The Commissioners of Sewerage have been 
receiving plans from engineers and others as to the 
best place for building sewers in this city, and the 
one they have decided on is now before the Common 
Council for consideration. 

This city maintains a great number of hotels, 
and they are not only well filled but always run- 
ning over; one of which, the Briggs House, for 
comfort, convenience, and neatness, is not sur- 
passed by any. There is now being added an ad- 
dition of eighty rooms, and when completed, it will 
be one of the largest hotels in Chicago. The first 
thought and desire of every traveler, on reaching a 
strange place, is to find a well-kept hotel, one where 



206 HOTELS. 

his every comfort is cared for. I take pleasure in 
paying a well-merited compliment to the Briggs 
House, which is under the able management of 
Messrs. Floyd & French. Its location is good, 
tables profusely furnished, rooms are large and 
well appointed, and the house possesses all the 
modern improvements of eastern hotels. The Tre- 
mont still retains its popularity as a first-class 
hotel ; and a new one, the Metropolitan, was 
opened a week since by the late proprietor of the 
'' City Hotel," of Hartford, Connecticut. It is a 
fine building, and with the able management of 
such men it can not but do well. 



XXVIII. 

St. Nicholas Hotel, August 25, 1856. 

Weaey, worn, and exhausted with traveling, 
never did sojourner seek the wajside inn with 
more satisfaction than I mj old and comfortable 
quarters at the St. Nicholas, a few dajs since, 
upon my return from the far West. I have 
long been lost (mayhap satisfactorily) to your 
readers, but I can not consent to stay lost. 
Sometimes I think of the Day Book as it is 
and as it was^ even a year ago — then almost 
unknown, now an " institution." Twenty-five 
thousand subscribers in a single year! Was 
the like ever known before ? I think not. With 
your present large and constantly increasing cir- 
culation, you must soon become a power in the 
land. And here permit me to say that New 
Yorkers are the most obstinate people I know. 
In the country, South and West, everybody sees, 



208 SOUTHERN FRIENDS. 

knows and reads the Weekly Day Book; here, 
if I want a copy of jour daily, I can't find 
it! What is the matter? I suspect the people 
here only read those papers which puff one an- 
other. 

To change the subject : — New York is as 
noisy as when I left it last spring, and the St. 
Nicholas just as large and just as full of peo- 
ple. I find here a number of my southern 
friends, whose delightful acquaintance I made 
last winter at the South; indeed, the hotel is 
now very liberally supplied with people from 
that much-abused section of the Union. Here 
they cluster, for they probably find it, like the 
St. Charles, of New Orleans, the most fascinat- 
ing of hotels — full of that fashion and abandon 
which give a spice and flavor to existence not 
elsewhere to be met with. Say what you will, 
an air of elegance and refinement produces a 
captivating influence which attracts thousands, 
and extorts praise and admiration from all who 
come within the circle of its charmed power. 
The splendor and magnificence of hotel life have 
fairly reached their zenith here, and no one can 
hope to see "modern improvements" carried fur- 



genin's bazaar. 209 

ther, unless we can be supplied with patent ap- 
pliances for mastication, and thus save that wear 
and tear upon our incisors and molars, which 
now result in no small advantage to the dent- 
ists. Those who have suffered, as I have, the 
miserable accommodations of "prairie hotels," 
where all things are not only held in common, 
but very common at that, know how to appre- 
ciate the luxury of a home where inconvenience 
is unknown, and where the mind is constantly 
gratified by that succession of novelty and pleas- 
ure which adds zest to the spirit, and animates 
even the physical powers. 

Not the least of the accommodations to us 
lady guests are the capital facilities afforded us 
in the immediate vicinity, indeed, in the very 
hotel, for the supplying of all our little neces- 
sary articles of wardrobe. Here Genin, the Na- 
poleon of costumers, holds forth his varied bazaar 
of a thousand wonders to tempt the fancy and 
beguile the unwilling dollars from the pocket. 
What an establishment ! or, as a Westerner would 
say, " What a smart bit of a place !" No less 
than twelve distmct departments, where every 
thing essential for a complete and fashionable 



210 genin's bazaar. 

outjat can be obtained. How many a dusty, 
dirty Californian, in blue jean and red flannel, 
has here been so suddenly transformed into a 
being of beauty and fashion that he scarcely 
knew himself when he paid his first attentions 
to the mirror! And to the ladies, what a place 
of interest ! The furs of Russian sable and 
royal ermine, lace of elegant workmanship, the 
fancy articles, delicate work-boxes, with caskets 
of jewels, etc., etc., — the mind actually wearies 
in looking over the magnificent assortment ; but 
I am consuming, I fear, too much of your 
valuable space in these exciting election times. 
Still, I must dilate upon scenes new to me, 
something that is not connected with the jing- 
ling of cars, the clatter of rickety engines, and 
the dirt and dust of western travel. Adieu ! 
when you hear from me again it may be per- 
chance upon some western plain, where the joy- 
ous sounds of the St. Nicholas are never heard, 
where primeval stillness reigns supreme, and 
where the luxuries of a dining room, resplen- 
dent with brilliant luster and a thousand appe- 
tizing viands, are never seen; indeed, where Na- 



PORK AND HOMINY. 211 

ture is reduced to the solid realities of pork 
and hominjj or majhap I shall drop you a 
line from Chicago, the Empire Citj of the 
West. 



XXIX. 

^xobi^ of dljitago.— Commerce.— dasl^ioits, ^c—'^iami' 
mtmx of f flitoraWe fu ^. palong for Congress. — 
^peetljes of Colonel |lkljarbsoit airb Colonel Carpenter. 
— S^lje Jfiftlj g^Iienne of Cl^kago. 

Teemont Hottse, Chioago, September 21, 1856. 

I AM more and more surprised every day I pass 
in Chicago at its gigantic enterprise and wonderful 
improvements. It is but twenty years since it was 
incorporated as a city ; now it has a population of 
a hundred thousand, and ornamented with fine sub- 
stantial buildings, enjoys all the luxuries and con- 
veniences of living. I am told that the last year's 
exports of grain alone were over twenty millions. 
Vessels are sent out direct to England. On the 
17th instant a new and splendid schooner, the 
" Dean Richmond," left her dock for Liverpool. 
She had on board four thousand seven hundred 
bushels of grain, and stopped at Milwaukie to com- 
plete her cargo. 



213 

In railroads, manufactures and all internal im- 
provements, Chicago is at least a quarter of a cen- 
tury in advance of her sister cities. In gajety and 
fashion she is entitled to rank A number one. Her 
wealth and luxury of living are proverbial, whilst 
her belles and beaux seem the impersonation of na- 
ture's noblemen and women. No city in the West 
can boast of more sumptuous and luxurious accom- 
modations for strangers. She maintains several 
large, well-regulated, first-class hotels, one of which, 
the Tremont, situated on the corner of Lake and 
Dearborn streets, is magnificently and tastefully 
furnished, and without regard to expense. The 
conveniences and comforts of the establishment 
have already secured and must, in time to come, 
insure it a large share of public patronage. The 
first thought and desire of a weary traveler, on 
reaching a strange place, is to find a well-kept ho- 
tel — one where his every comfort is cared for, and 
every thing conspires to make him feel home-like 
and contented. The Tremont is such a one. 

The " Ladies' Ordinary" is very handsomely fin- 
ished and fitted up ; tables profusely furnished with 
all the appetizing luxuries of the season, and served 
in perfect order and elegance. The cuisine is the 



214 THE TREMONT HOUSE. 

very best ; and well-drilled waiters are constantly 
on the look-out to find out the requirements of the 
guests. Dinner from one to three o'clock. Guests 
can walk into this quiet, elegant and well-appointed 
dining-room, seat themselves at one of those tempt- 
ing tables, order whatever they choose from the 
carte de di?ier, and discuss it quietly, and at their 
own time and leisure. This is choosing one's own 
time and convenience for taking meals and refresh- 
ments, instead of suiting it to others; and thus 
avoiding all the uncomfortable crushing and scram- 
bling of a single table d'hote. 

Those who visit Chicago should go to this mag- 
nificent establishment, and place themselves under 
the care of those gentlemanly men, the Messrs. 
Gage, Brother and Drake, the proprietors and con- 
ductors of this excellent house, who take great 
pains to render the stay of their guests in every 
way pleasant; and with the splendid location of 
the house itself, the careful attention of its pro- 
prietors, and the high character it enjoys as a first- 
class hotel ,perfect in all its appointments, it is 
just the place to pass time in Chicago pleasantly. 

The Democracy of the first congressional dis- 
trict held their convention to nominate a candidate 



SPEECH OF COLONEL RICHARDSON. 215 

for Congress, at Freeport, Stephenson count j, Il- 
linois, July 7th, and unanimously agreed upon 
the Honorable R. S. Malony, who formerly repre- 
sented his district with so much honor to him- 
self and usefulness to his constituents. A mass 
meeting was then held in the public square where 
Colonel William A. Richardson, the democratic 
nominee for governor, addressed the immense crowd 
of people for nearly two hours, in a speech replete 
with wit, argument and eloquence. He reviewed 
the history of the slavery agitation — defended the 
principles of the Kansas-Nebraska Act ; and, not 
content with defense, he carried the war into Af- 
rica (by the way, this classical expression has a 
peculiar significance when applied to attack upon 
the Black Republican army), and showed that 
Colonel Bissel (the Fremont candidate for gov- 
ernor), had voted for the same principle in the 
Utah, and New Mexico, and Washington Bills, 
and spoke in favor of them, including. Mormon- 
dom. Colonel R. built a wall of fire around his 
opponent, from which, in November, there will 
be no escape, except upon that retired and quiet 
stream, Salt river. 

After he concluded, Colonel R. B. Carpenter, 



216 COLONEL CARPENTER. 

of Chicago, addressed the audience for an hour and 
a half In analyzing political character, and de- 
scribing the various shades of political part es, he 
possesses great strength and originality of style 
and expression, with a precision of logical reason- 
ing, interspersed with wit, anecdote and flowers of 
rhetoric, which made a marked impression upon 
the large audience present. Colonel C. a year 
since removed from the State of Kentucky to this 
city, and will, doubtless, become one of the master 
spirits of the Democracy of the whole State of Il- 
linois. Young, gallant, chivalrous, learned and 
eloquent, he will wear fitly the mantle of great- 
ness, as he wields aptly the scepter of eloquence. 
I may add to this, that he is already a great favor- 
ite with the Democratic party, and thoroughly 
national and orthodox in his political tenets. 

You can set it down as a fixed fact, that the De- 
mocracy will sweep this State at the fall election 
by an old-fashioned majority. 

Michigan avenue is to Chicago what Fifth av- 
enue is to New York, the favorite street for private 
dwellings. On the east side it runs directly on the 
lake shore. It is a mile and a half in length, and 
has an elevation of twelve or fourteen feet above 



THE FIFTH AVENUE OF CHICAGO. 217 

the water. The houses are built only on the west 
side, leaving the view of the lake entirely unob- 
structed. There are many fine private residences 
on this street, both in size and style, vfhich may be 
fairly ranked as palaces. It is one of the most 
pleasant and most interesting walks in the Union, 
having a pure cool breeze, a full view of the lake, 
which, as far as the eye can reach, is dotted over 
with vessels and sailing craft of all kinds. Erom 
this promenade may be seen constantly passing and 
repassing trains of twenty or thirty cars on the 
railroad track, built on the lake, the inside line be- 
ing four hundred feet from the east side of the 
avenue, and in sight the finest, most substantial, 
and largest depot in the world. On the north 
side, which, toward the lake shore, is rather more 
quiet and retired, are many fine cottages of the 
best suburban styles, adorned with conservatories 
and gardens, and embowered in groves of locust, 
ash and oak. 

At present the city is remarkably healthy, and 
weather cool and delightful. 



10 



XXX. 

Illhtois fdilks — Pr. goitglns — Pr. Smtok — Coloiwl 
Carpenter. — ^l^t "^mxlt of tlje '^uunt Contest 

CincAGO, III., August 1, 1858. 

A SINGULAR political condition was that of 
Illinois in 1856, Mr. Buchanan receiving ten 
thousand votes more than Fremont, while Col- 
onel Bissell beat Colonel Richardson, the regular 
Democratic nominee, over eight thousand, and this 
while the latter received two thousand more votes 
than Buchanan. The Know Nothings had a can- 
didate for governor, Judge Morris, but he was not 
able to command the party strength, falling behind 
Mr. Fillmore about twenty thousand votes. 

The only question that has changed the aspect 
of affairs since is the question of the admission of 
Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. 

The opposition of Senator Douglas to that meas- 
ure, and the reasons assigned by him, are too well 
known to require a repetition. That the effect of 



MR. DOUGLAS. 219 

the schism will be injurious to the party, none can 
doubt ; but that it will be detrimental to the sen- 
ator, so far as his return to the Senate is concerned, 
I do not believe. He, in this respect, has played 
his game well. The Republican papers, orators, 
and members of Congress, have not only coincided 
in his views, but have actively supported him in 
his course upon this question. And that in his case 
is the issue to be decided on in November. They 
told their rank and file that the senator was right, 
until enough of them believed it to return him to 
the Senate. They have called ' • spirits from the 
vasty deep." Mr. Douglas may, and probably will, 
lose some Democratic districts, but he will gain in 
some Republican districts more than enough to 
counterbalance his losses. This will be accom- 
plished in part by running Republicans and Know 
Nothings fi^endly to Douglas in close districts, and 
thus distracting the opposition by using tl leir own 
men. 

But there is another reason that leads me to this 
conclusion. It is this. The general sentiment of 
the North is one of opposition to slavery, and es- 
pecially to the admission of more slave States. 
There is no principle involved in the submission or 



220 MR. DOUGLAS. 

non-submission of a State constitution to the people, 
whether we take as our guide the theory or practice 
of the government. But the people of the North 
know that a majority of the citizens of Kansas are 
for a free State ; and hence, if Mr. Douglas's pro- 
gramme is carried out, and the constitution submit- 
ted to them, that slavery can not find place among 
her institutions. And this is the real principle 
that will, in my opinion, triumphantly return Mr. 
Douglas to the Senate. Three parties have already 
held monster meetings here. The first, in point of 
time and numbers, was on the return of Mr. Doug- 
las, when he was received in a manner highly com- 
plimentary, and doubtless very gratifying to him. 
He made a speech to the assembled thousands from 
the balcony of the Tremont House. The speech 
has been published and read throughout the coun- 
try, and I will not extend this communication by 
adverting to its topics. The senator has too long 
been a prominent actor on the public stage, his 
splendid ability too well known and generally rec- 
ognized, to require from me comment. In manner, 
he combines force and grace. His head is noble, 
almost Webster ian. His voice not unpleasant, and 
altogether he is a most efiective popular speaker. 



MR. LINCOLN. 221 

The next, following the same order as before, was 
the great Republican gathering, which was ad- 
dressed bj Mr. Lincoln, the Republican candidate 
for the Senate. The meeting was large and enthu- 
siastic. Mr. Lincoln is not much known out of 
Illinois. In person, he is tall and awkward; in 
manner, ungainly. His face is certainly ugly, but 
not repulsive; on the contrary, the good humor, 
generosity and intellect beaming from it, makes the 
eye love to linger there until you almost fancy him 
good-looking. He is a man of decided talents. On 
the stump, ready, humorous, argumentative, and 
tells an anecdote with inconceivable quaintness and 
effect. He is honest as a man, and enthusiastic as 
a politician. He is an able lawyer, and that is the 
true field of his fame ; for, unless I am mistaken in 
my estimate above, he will for some years, at least, 
remain an ornament to that noble profession. 

Last, and least in point of numbers and enthu- 
siasm, the administration Democracy hold a meet- 
ing in Metropolitan Hall. The spacious edifice was 
crammed full, though it was easy to see and hear 
that the multitude did not sympathize with the 
orators. Colonel Carpenter opened the ball. He 
is a young man, who removed from Kentucky to 



222 COLONEL CARPENTER. 

this city in 1855, and canvassed a large portion of 
the State for the Democratic ticket in 1856. In 
person, he is tall, with a good figure, a fine voice, 
and eyes that are absolutely sleepy (it would be 
more poetical to say dreamy, but sleepy is the 
word). There is nothing in his face or appearance 
to indicate the man, unless it be some lines plowed, 
not by years, but thought, and an habitual shade 
of sadness that rests always upon his fice when in 
repose. When addressing a popular audience, in 
moments of enthusiasm, his eyes brighten to a 
blaze, and his features do the bidding of his mind 
with wonderful facility. Sarcasm^ scorn ^ conteinpt^ 
are mirrored with faithful accuracy, while, in his 
loftier bursts of eloquence, he seems the embodiment 
of the devoted, unselfish patriot. His thoughts are 
bold and clear, his diction smooth and flowing, or 
terse and anti-musical, as suits his purpose and the 
occasion. He does not attempt to win a forensic 
battle by stratagetic movements, but marshals his 
thoughts in solid phalanx, and drops upon the ene- 
my and takes the position at the point of the bay- 
onet. He utters the boldest and most unpopular 
propositions, in a manner and with a voice which 
seems to say, Sir, listen to me, and you shall be 



COLONEL CARPENTER. 223 

convinced. He has a fertile imagination, a soaring 

fancy, and deep pathos, and yet keeps them all in 

such subjection to his judgment that he is eminently 

a practical speaker. It is true there are flowers on 

either hand, but there is also a well-defined path 

along which the orator has passed. From his few 

published speeches the reader can determine the 

correctness of these remarks. The speech on the 

occasion referred to was equally denunciatory of 

Douglasism and Republicanism. It has had a wide 

( circulation, and speaks for itself Mr. Fitch, the 

,' District Attorney, and others, addressed the meet- 

j ing, but I have neither time nor space to follow 

them. 



XXXI. 

Flume House, White Mountains, N. H., August 6, 1858. 

After having had a good, warm supper, and 
hovered over a rousing wood fire for half an hour, I 
think I am sufficiently thawed out to give an ac- 
count of myself It is sufficient to say that I was 
smitten with the White Mountain fever on Monday 
last, and taking my old and favorite line, when go- 
ing East, the Norwich and Worcester, I soon found 
myself e7i route for the White Mountains of New 
Hampshire. As it may be interesting to others to 
know the route to take, I will put down the items. 
First, the Norwich and Worcester line of steamers. 
You arrive in Worcester the morning ■ after leav- 
ing New York in time for the six o'clock train for 
Nashua, Concord and Wells River. It is better to 
leave the train at Plymouth, and take the stage, 
twenty-three miles to the Flume House, which is 
located just at the entrance of the Franconia Notch. 



THE FLUME HOUSE. 225 

I found the stage ride the most pleasant and de- 
lightful of an J part of the journey. The road is 
not what most people might expect to find. It fol- 
lows the valley of the Pemigewasset River the whole 
distance, which grows gradually more and more 
narrow. The scenery is so variegated with gently- 
sloping acclivities, steep and rugged precipices and 
the projecting clifis of the mountains on either side, 
that the eye is never wearied of the scenery. The 
Pemigewasset seems like an angry torrent, rushing 
in wild majesty over ragged stones and through 
narrow gorges, and then gliding out quietly and 
smoothly as the surface of a lake. 

We had two stage loads of passengers from Ply- 
mouth, where w^e arrived at one o'clock and took 
dinner. We reached the Flume House, my present 
quarters, a little before six. The tops of the moun- 
tains, almost ever since we entered the Pemigewas- 
set valley, have been covered with mists and fogs. 
The weather, too, has been gradually growing cold- 
er, rendering overcoats, in riding, indispensable, and 
fires in the hotel exceedingly agreeable. A bright 
wood fire now blazes up before me as I write, the 
first time I ever recollect of needing artificial calo- 
ric in August to keep the body warm. To-morrow 
10* 



226 THE FLUME HOUSE. 

I shall explore the sights in the vicinity, of which 
I hear there are several of interest. The Profile 
Mountain is just visible to the north of us, its bare 
and rugged sides looming up twelve hundred feet 
almost perpendicularly above the road at its base. 
Mount Lafayette is also in sight, but its top has 
been enveloped in a dense fog all the afternoon. 
The Flume is about a mile from the hotel. Echo 
Lake is also hard by, with other points of interest. 

It is a matter of wonder that more people do not 
visit these mountains. Just twenty-four hours of 
easy travel from New York has set me down here 
in the very midst of gigantic mountains and splen- 
did scenery, where one may feast his eyes and revel 
in imagination to his heart's content. Such a phe- 
nomenon as a warm night, I am told, has not been 
known here this summer. People who come here 
sleep as soundly as in winter, and rise refreshed and 
strengthened. The general impression among peo- 
ple is, I think, that it is difficult to reach the White 
Mountains, that the roads are rough and the hotels 
poor, but such is not the case. The roads are 
smooth, the hotels large and commodious, and every 
attention is paid to the wants of guests. 

New Hampshire is a much more pleasant and 



THE FLUME HOUSE. 227 

inviting State than I expected to find it. Nearly 
all the land seems well cultivated, and tolerably 
productive. But I am astonished to find crops so 
backward. Rye is not yet harvested. Some fields 
are green, and will not be ready for the reaper in 
some time. Corn and New Hampshire, I take it, 
are no friends. All I have seen to-day looks sickly 
and feeble, and will hardly pay for the gatherkig. 
Indeed, I have seen corn in southern Illinois in 
June larger than some fields I have seen to-day in 
"top-gallant." There is an air of neatness and 
thriftiness about the farm houses which is very 
agreeable. The only wonder is, that with so little 
arable land the people should evidently get so good 
a livelihood. I do n't know what they sell. It cer- 
tainly is not grain. 



XXXII. 

Peofile House, N. H., August 7, 1858. 

This has been almost a dies non, so far as see- 
ing the mountains is concerned. The rain has either 
poured down in torrents or kept drizzling in a dull, 
heavy mist from the clouds, which almost seem to 
touch our heads. This spot is not the White Moun- 
tains proper, but the Franconia, a range scarcely 
less interesting. In the rear of the Flume House 
a mountain of the same name towers up, a view 
from the summit of which, it is said, gives a splen- 
did view of the entire valley. As for views, I am 
compelled to take them all upon hearsay, for I can't 
see any thing but mists and fogs. 

I have one exception, however, to this remark. 
Before I left the Flume House, which is only five 
miles from the Profile, I visited the Flume itself 
It consists of a narrow gorge, through which flows 



THE CASCADES. 229 

a rolling, tumbling stream, coming down from the 
heights above in the wildest confusion. Instead of 
precipitating the stream over the perpendicular edge 
of the cliff, nature has cut for it the gorge referred 
to in the rocks. Below the Flume are the Cascades, 
where the atream, for a distance of some six hun- 
dred feet, falls over the surface of a smooth rock, 
up whose slippery sides the traveler is forced to 
wend his waj in order to reach the natural curiosity 
above. The spot is well worth seeing, and sur- 
passes in wildness and strange singularity any thing 
I have ever seen. In our party were a lady and 
gentleman who had traveled over all Europe, and 
they asserted they had never seen any thing so strik- 
ingly picturesque. The sides of the gorge rise ab- 
ruptly some sixty or seventy feet, while the stream 
struggles through it with a low, gurgling sound. 
Queerest of all, nature in one of her most fantastic 
freaks has detached a huge rock, weighing several 
tons, from the side of the mountain and rolled it 
into the gorge, where it has lodged in the most nar- 
row part of the chasm, some thirty or forty feet 
above the waters. The greatest wonder is what 
holds it there, for it hangs in such a peculiar posi- 
tion that it would seem to take but a jar or a jolt to 



230 THE PROFILE HOUSE. 

send it tumbling into the stream below. A path of 
planks has been constructed up through the Flume 
from rock to rock until you can walk directly under 
the overhanging rock itself Some will not venture 
there, arguing that as the rock is sure to fall some 
time, it is just as likely to come down when they are 
under it as at any other period. Our party did not 
take counsel of this cautious argument, but clam- 
bered their way over the trembling planks, unter- 
rified by the torrent below. The view immediately 
under the rock is somewhat ^'pokerish," to use a 
common but expressive quotation. We soon, how- 
ever, hurried back to the hotel, glad to get by 
a warm fire and out of the incessant " drizzle, 
drizzle," which seemed to dampen us completely 
through. 

We did not visit the Pool, another curiosity near 
the Elume House, on account of the rain, but hur- 
ried on to this place, the Profile House. Most of 
the way it rained a^s usual. Indeed, we seem to be 
living in the clouds where the rain is manufac- 
tured for the regions below. This house is 500 
feet higher up the mountain than the Flume. It is 
exactly in the Notcli of the Franconia Mountains, 
and is considered the coldest place in New Hamp- 



THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 231 

shire, except, perhaps, the top of Mount Washing- 
ton. The wind draws through the narrow gorge of 
the mountains, which here almost approach each 
other. On our left to-day coming up was Profile 
Mountain, near the summit of which is the peak 
called ''The Old Man of the Mountain." This 
consists of the exact profile of a man's face. I did 
not expect to-day to get a glimpse of it, but as we 
came up, '' the Old Man" had the politeness to take 
off his cap of mist and cloud and allow us to inspect 
his phiz. Our driver says it is eighty feet from the 
Old Man's chin to his forehead. If such be the 
fact, he may be said to be a long-faced old fellow. 
At all events, he looks sufficiently solemn. Besides, 
he seems care-worn. I could detect deep fissures 
and wrinkles in his sides, which are as barren as 
the Russ pavement in Broadway, and about as slip- 
pery. After you get further around the mountain 
towards the Profile House, the sides are covered 
with trees and verdure, but in front the Old Man 
has evidently seen hard times. He has been look- 
ing down the Pemigewasset valley, I expect, ever 
since the world began. At any rate, I will give 
anybody liberty to contradict who knows to the 
contrary. The Profile Lake or " Old Man's Mir- 



232 THE WEATHER. 

ror," as some poetical tourists call it, is just at the 
base of the mountain. It is a beautiful sheet of 
■water, and clear as crystal. 

Opposite the Old Man of the Mountain is Mount 
Lafayette, which is only five hundred feet lower 
than Mount Washington. But I could not see it. 
It was vailed in black, heavy clouds, which most of 
the time were pouring down their contents in much 
greater quantities than were agreeable. 

The Profile House is delightfully situated, and 
seems to be a place of great resort. We found it 
almost full. There can not be less than two hun- 
dred people here to-night. It is only eleven miles 
from the railroad at Littleton, but I think the route 
I came decidedly the best. You have the beautiful 
stage ride, see the Flume, and get here almost as 
soon as by the railroad. 

To-night it rains as if it had never rained before, 
and I am in hopes it will clear up and give us a fair 
day to-morrow. The weatlier here is several de- 
grees colder than at the Flume House. The doors 
of the hotel are all closed, and there are large 
wood fires in the parlors. Wood is cheap and 
plenty. The vast acres of forest in the vicinity be- 
long to no one, and each man helps himself. Tim- 



A BEAR CAUGHT. 233 

ber is plenty, but the men are scarce. There is not 
a single dwelling, except one Indian hut, between 
here and the Flume. The town of Lincoln, in 
which the Flume House is situated, has but eleven 
voters, all told ! What a glorious place it must be ! 
Every man can have an office ! 

Yesterday a large bear was caught near here. 
They say it was amazingly poor, and looked as if it 
had seen the hardest kind of times. I saw one of 
its fore feet, which was a solid specimen of a paw, 
and one which I would much prefer not to encoun- 

( ter. If these are the "natives" of this region, I 

( desire not to make their acquaintance. 



XXXIII. 

Montreal— S^Ijc Wktoxm Citklar fribge. 

DoNEGANA Hotel, Montreal, August 10, 1858. 

LEFT the White Mountains on Friday with the 
11 o'clock train, and arrived in Montreal the same 
evening. It rained during almost the entire day ; 
in fact this is the first clear weather I have seen 
since leavino; home. The road from Gorham to this 
place lies through the upper portions of New Hamp- 
shire, Vermont and Lower Canada. It crosses the 
head waters of the Connecticut river, and for many 
miles runs through vast pine forests, which do 
not seem as yet to have been scarcely touched by 
the woodman's ax. Wild and uncultivated, the 
scenery is all that the lover of primeval solitude 
can ask. When the cars reached Island Pond, in 
Vermont, a beautiful sheet of water, clasping in its 
crystal embrace three or four beautiful islands, Un- 
cle Samuel's custom house officers examined our 
baggage. The examination is not very rigid, consist- 



CROSSING THE BOUNDARY LINE. 235 

ing in simply inquiring what the trunks, &c.j con- 
tained. When assured that they held nothing but 
ordinary traveling apparel, the indefatigable officer 
solemnly crossed them with '' a piece of chalk," and 
his duty had been performed. 

At this place, too, the cars halt for dinner. The 
Grand Trunk Railway have here a very commo- 
dious dt;pot, in fact all the stations on their road 
are supplied with very substantial houses for pas- 
sengers. Soon after leaving Island Pond, we cross 
the Boundary Line, and are in the dominions of 
Queen Victoria. The country still looks bleak and 
cold. The pine forests begin to show occasionally 
the inroads of the intrepid pioneer, but generally 
they are dark, drear, and seemingly impenetrable. 
The road here strikes the head waters of the Coati- 
cook river, a small stream which finally empties 
into the St. Francis river, a very considerable body 
of water. The route down this valley is exceed- 
ingly agreeable. Sometimes, as the cars strike a 
summit, you can see for miles, the eye taking in 
nothing but long unbroken tracts of pines. Again, 
evidences of settlement are seen, until, as you 
reach the St. Francis river, the country becomes 
well settled and apparently carefully cultivated. 



236 MONTREAL. 

Vast masses of lumber are rafted down the St. 
Francis, forming one of the most important features 
in the business of this section. 

As we approach Montreal, the country becomes 
as level as the prairies of the West, and the land 
exhibits a high state of cultivation. Far as the 
eye can reach is one expanse of country, dotted with 
farm houses and waving with crops almost ready 
for harvesting. Wheat here is still quite green, 
not much of it yet having assumed a ripe appear- 
ance. The crops, both of this grain and oats, seem 
very good. I notice, however, an immense quan- 
tity of what are called in New York State " Can- 
ada thistles." From St. Hilaii-e to Montreal the 
fields are literally covered with them, and how the 
farmers manage to gather their crops or wqrk with 
any degree of comfort among such a mass of prickly 
nuisances I can not imagine. 

To-day I have been examining Montreal. The 
city has a queer, quaint appearance. The people 
are evidently not as progressive as with us. The 
business part of the town looks somewhat modern, 
but in other portions it retains the old French style 
of the early settlement. The houses are substan- 
tially built, close to the sidewalks, which are very 



THE VICTORIA TUBULAR BRIDGE. 237 

narrow. Notre Dame and Great St. James are the 
principal streets. Notre Dame somewhat resembles 
Washington street, of Boston, though it is not so 
lively or busy. In fact, Montreal is a dull place, 
and needs, I apprehend, a little more infusion of 
American energy to wake it up. An enterprising 
Yankee here might make a fortune by establishing 
a line of omnibuses. It is said the attempt was 
made a few years since, but the drivers of the cabs, 
calaches and other uncivilized looking vehicles they 
I have here, burnt up his stables and horses, and the 
I poor man was compelled to fly the town. This 
j summer another Yankee has undertaken a baggage 
and passenger express from the cars, coming on 
( board the train before it stops, getting the checks, 
( &c., as is customary on the roads to New York, but 
he is threatened with death if he do n't quit this inno- 
vation upon ancient customs. Our driver assured 
us to-day, when taking a ride to the mountain, that 
" he would catch it before the summer was^over." 

The -Victoria Tubular Bridge, in connection 
with the Grand Trunk Railway, will form, when 
completed, the most important public work of Can- 
ada. This line of railway is intended to form a 
direct line of communication through the entire 



238 THE VICTORIA TUBULAR BRIDGE. 

Canadian provinces, from west to east, ending at 
the capacious harbor of Portland, in Maine, as its 
eastern terminus. The road is constructed through- 
out in the most substantial manner, and excepting 
the road from Norwich to Worcester, in Massachu- 
setts, I never rode on its superior. It is famous 
for its strong and massive bridges, the most impor- 
tant one of which already completed is the Saint 
Anns, over the Ottawa river. But the bridges 
already built, and, in fact, the bridges of the world, 
pale in insignificance before the gigantic Victoria 
Tubular Bridge now in course of construction at 
this place. It crosses the Saint Lawrence about a 
mile and a half above the central part of the town, 
and at a place where the water is so rapid the boats 
can not go up the current. When the rapidity of 
the stream is taken into consideration, and the fact 
that a coffer-dam has to be made for each pier, the 
water pumped out, and excavations made below the 
bed of the river, in some cases as far as thirteen 
feet, before a suitable foundation for the pier can 
be found, some idea of the immense labor of the 
undertaking can be formed. Then let it be remem- 
bered that there are to be twenty-four of these mas- 
sive cut stone piers to sustain the twenty-five iron 



THE VICTORIA TUBULAR BRIDGE. 239 

arches ; and that these iron arches are made of heavy 
wrought iron plates, from a quarter to half an inch 
in thickness, fastened together with innumerable 
rivets, and that these arches extend a distance of 
one mile and three quarters! When the mind 
' fairly comprehends these facts, it will begni to un- 
1 derstand the gigantic character of this work. 

All will recollect what an excitement was occa- 
; sioned in England by the completion of the Britan- 
I nia Tubular Bridge across the Menai Straits ; but 
I this work is an insignificant one, in point of size, 
' compared with the Victoria Bridge. The Britannia 
j Bridge is only fifteen hundred and thirteen feet 
] long, though its longest tube is four hundred and 
* sixty feet. The Victoria Bridge, as I have stated, 
I will be one mile and three quarters, the longest 
tube being three hundred and thirty feet. Our 
visit to this wonderful work was greatly enhanced 
in interest by Mr. J. W. Woodford, the superin- 
tending engineer, who has special charge, of put- 
ting up the tubes, and Avho explained to us all the 
details of the manner of construction. Mr. Ste- 
phenson, the renowned inventor of the bridge, is 
not in this country, Mr. James Hodges having the 
general direction of the work. From Mr. Wood- 



240 THE VICTORIA TUBULAR BRIDGE. 

ford we learn that the contractors, Messrs. Jack- 
son, Peto, Brassy and Betts, have now about three 
hundred men employed. Thej are prosecuting the 
work with all the expedition possible, but the ad- 
vance is necessarily slow. The ice in the Saint 
Lawrence does not get out before May, and the 
cold weather sets in by the first of November, so 
that it leaves only about six months in the year for 
work. Four years have already been consumed, 
and it is estimated it will take at least two more to 
complete it, should they have good luck. This year 
they have had a good deal of difficulty with the 
dams, one having broken away three times. Four- 
teen piers are now completed, and it is hoped to 
have eight more done this year. Three tubes are 
finished, and it is expected that five more will be 
put up before the season closes. 

The tubes are well worth a study. The iron 
is imported from England, already manufactured. 
They are made in Birkenhead, opposite Liverpool. 
Nothing is made here but the rivets, for which the 
contractors have a machine on purpose. The sheets 
of iron are about twelve feet in length and two and 
a half in width (I have not the exact figures). 
These are riveted to T and L iron. The tubes 



THE VICTORIA TUBULAR BRIDGE. 241 

nearest the shore are nineteen feet high and seven- 
teen feet wideband increase in size as the span in- 
creases in length. The center tube, over the three 
hundred and thirty feet span, is twenty- two feet 
high and seventeen feet wide. Each span contains 
about two hundred and forty tons of iron, and each 
span is from two hundred and forty eight to three 
hundred and thirty feet in length. 

It is calculated that the buttress of each pier will 
have to bear the pressure of seventy thousand tons 
of ice when the winter breaks up, and the ice comes 
sweeping down the Saint Lawrence. Mr. Woodford 
informed us that last spring it was piled in some 
places thirty feet above the bridge. The highest 
span of the bridge is sixty feet from the water. It 
seems like being in Pandemonium to enter the tubes 
at present, where they are at work. It is perfectly 
dark, except what little light may be dimly discov- 
ered at the entrance, the few streaks that pour 
through the yet unri voted holes, and the light of 
the smiths' fires, used in heating the rivets. Add 
to the smoke thus occasioned the incessant thump- 
ing of perhaps some hundred and fifty hammers, 
and a faint idea of the scene is obtained. Where 
Vulcan forged his thunderbolts could not have been 
11 



242 THE VICTORIA TUBULAE BRIDGE. 

a place of such deafening noise. Perhaps old John 
Ford, in describing Tophet, had no intention of pic- 
turing the building of an iron tubular bridge, and 
yet he did it most accurately : 

" A black and hollow vault 
Where day is never seen ; there shines no sun, 
But flaming horrons of consuming fire ; 
A lightlcss sulphur cloak'd with smoky fogs 
Of an infected darkness." 

When this tubular bridge is completed, it will 
most assuredly be the greatest work of the kind on 
this continent, and, in fact, in the world. Its cost 
will be about $7,500,000, and it will attract thou- 
sands of visitors to Montreal ; for it will be in me- 
chanical skill and workfuanship what Niagara is in 
nature. The Canadians certainly deserve great 
praise for their enterprise and activity, and it is no 
wonder they are proud of this stupendous work. 



XXXIV. 

S^rip from dlljimgcr. — gniluonbs. — lltmtsglljuma Ctnfrnl— 

St. Nicholas Hotel, New York, July 14, 1850. 

On the 8tli instant, I left the "Garden City," 
at seven o'clock, A. M., on the Pittsburg, Fort 
Wayne and Chicago Railroad, and was rolled away 
at a rapid rate through a pleasant and fertile coun- 
try in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, where the crops 
seemed abundant, and where I was told the wheat 
already harvested is of superior quality. We passed 
through may thriving towns along the line of the 
road that are rapidly advancing in material pros- 
perity and external beauty. The result of the 
modern system of pressing events into a narrow 
compass is, that life seems a succession of pleasant 
changes, and what used to cost a week's travel is 
now accomplished with pleasant ease in a single 
day ; so that we live now-a-days as much, if not so 
long, as in the camel-riding days of the olden time. 



244 MANUFACTURES OF PITTSBURG. 

The whole road over which I traveled is in good 
order, the cars in excellent condition, and the of- 
ficials, from Colonel Boss, the gentlemanly general 
agent for the West, and the conductors, down to the 
brakemen, are courteous, polite and attentive to 
the wants of the traveling public. The refresh- 
ments, no small item in traveling, are first rate at 
Fort Wayne, Cresline and Alliance. It is a safe, 
speedy route, and meets, in the increased receipts, a 
well-merited reward. 

On the 9th instant I left Pittsburg, which is 
noted for its great manufacturing and mineral pro- 
ducts, the former consisting chiefly of iron in every 
form. Glass and glassware are also extensively man- 
ufactured, and the surrounding country abounds in 
mineral wealth. Traffic in coal is extensive, amount- 
ing to many millions of bushels per annum. 

I noticed, in taking our departure from the city, 
the extensive engine-houses, machine-shops, ware- 
houses, &c., of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany, situated in the suburbs of the busy city. 
The engine-house is said to be one thousand feet in 
circumference, affording accommodation for forty- 
six locomotives, which is believed to be the largest 
house of the kind in America. Five miles east of 



MmEilAL WEALTH OF PITTSBURG. 245 

Pittsburg we pass through East Liberty, where the 
citj merchant retires from the turmoil of business, 
and the smoke of the iron citv, to obtain for himself 
and family social enjoyment and relaxation from 
business. The whole country is dotted with splen- 
did country houses. 

Ten miles east of Pittsburg we pass through the 
battle ground where General Braddock met with 
his miserable defeat. Two miles further we enter 
the region abounding in bituminous coal, known as 
the Pittsburg Gas Seam, much of which is shipped 
to the eastern cities. New York, Philadelphia, &c., 
to be used in providing the ever-useful gas light. 
Mines are opened at many points, and give evidence 
of great activity in that branch of trade. I was in- 
formed that the railroad company ship eastward 
fifty thousand tons per annum. Forty miles east 
of Pittsburg we passed through the Loyal Ilanna 
valley, a beautiful, fertile country, in the midst of 
which the thriving village of Latrobe is situated. 
This valley is the grand climax to all Alleghany 
aspirations. Let the whole world come and look at 
it, and be silent, for it is a temple worthy of the 
Eternal ! 

After leaving Blairville Intersection we passed 



246 BEAUTIFUL SCENERY. 

through the gap in Chestnut Ridge, the road be- 
ing located above the Conemaugh river about a 
hundred and sixty feet. As we glided along, the 
outlines of the many peaks were very distinct ; not 
a cloud to obstruct a single feature of their colossal 
proportions ; and while they had already taken 
the shadow of evening upon their brows, it still re- 
flected back the last rays of the sinking sun. I sat 
by the window and watched the last golden beam 
as it crept to the utmost peak, and thence seemed 
to glide into heaven ! The sight was beautiful : it 
resembled love — love that lingers longest when you 
are above and beyond its mockeries. 

Eighty-one miles from Pittsburg we reach Johns- 
town, at the foot of the Alleghanies, where we find 
the extensive iron rail mills and furnaces of the 
Cambria Iron Company. The product of this vast 
establishment is said to exceed one hundred tons of 
rails per day, giving employment to over three thou- 
sand men. The rails are principally used on west- 
ern and southern roads, accessible by rail or the 
Ohio river. Leaving; Johnstown, we beorin ascendinf]^ 
the mountain. Twenty-two miles from the base we 
reach the Cresson Hotel, quite a popular summer 
resort. The hotels are extensive, and well managed 



PENNSYLVANIA CENTRAL RAILrxOAD. 247 

bj Mr. Campbell, proprietor of the Saint Lawrence 
Hotel, Philadelphia. A few miles east of Cresson 
Ave pass throught the great Alleghany mountain 
tunnel, three thousand seven hundred feet in length, 
which is a magnificent work, being substantially 
arched and in perfect condition. 

Emerging from the tunnel, we have before us 
the grandest and most beautiful mountain scenery 
which it has ever been our good fortune to look 
upon. The blending of mountain peaks with the 
fertile valleys far below, presents a picture that all 
lovers of nature must greatly admire. 

The road is one of the most permanent in the 
world, having been constructed at great expense. 
The iron is heavy, and of the most approved pat- 
terns. Cross-ties larger than we have seen in any 
road, all laid in broken stone, which render the 
roadway firm, furnishes excellent drainage, and, at 
the same time, is a perfect preventive against the 
clouds of dust, a source of great annoyance on many 
roads in America. All things considered, we re- 
gard the Pennsylvania Central as the railroad j)ar 
excellence of the country. A ride over it is a great 
treat to the lover of fine scenery, or the traveler 
who consults comfort. 



248 LOGAN HOUSE. 

Ill four hours and thirty-five minutes after leav- 
ing Pittsburg we arrived at the Logan House, Al- 
toona, and were surprised to find a first-class hotel, 
capable of accommodating over two hundred guests. 
It is a rare treat for the weary traveler to meet 
with such a house. We concluded to rest here for 
the night, and resume our going east in the morn- 
ing. We witnessed the operation of a very valu- 
able railroad improvement known as Longbridge's 
Graduating Car Brake, which has been adopted by 
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. This inven- 
tion gives to the engineer entire control of all the 
brakes in the train, and enables him to stop in one 
half the distance that can now be done with the old 
mode of applying the brakes by hand. It gives 
a very perceptible quietness to the movement of 
trains, as brakemen are not constantly called by 
the whistle to apply the brakes. This improve- 
mentxis essential to the safety of human life, and 
should be at once adopted by all railroad compa- 
nies. 

From Altoona to Harrisburg the scenery is less 
grand, but very picturesque. The railroad follows 
the coy windings of the river Juniata, of whose 
beauty the poet has sung. It is wildly natural 



THE SAINT NICHOLAS HOTEL. 249 

and graceful, shut in by a labyrinth of mountains. 
This end of the road is in excellent order, the con- 
ductors polite and attentive, and the best hotels in 
the country. It is a wonder that this trip over the 
Alleghanies is not the most favorite of the excur- 
sions. We are indebted for much of our infor- 
mation concerning the road to the gentlemanly su- 
perintendent, Thomas A. Scott, Esquire. From 
Harrisburg to Philadelphia the road passes through 
the finest agricultural region in America, but want 
of space must defer a full description. 

A few words about my old home, the Saint 
Nicholas, and I will close this rambling letter. Jt 
is three years since I gazed upon its ample parlors 
and its brilliant dining-rooms ; but three years 
do not seem to have faded its beauties or dimmed 
its brilliancy. The same dazzling glow of gold and 
crimson strikes the eye ; the carpets are just as 
soft, and the chandeliers shed down the same mel- 
low and undulating light. The crowd still throngs 
its palatial passage-vv^ays, and as eagerly as ever 
crowd its drawing-rooms. Broadway, with its 
ceaseless thunder of vehicles, roars as loudly as 
ever ; the sidewalks seem even more crowded, and 
every thing reminds me, an old New Yorker, that 



250 THE SAINT NICHOLAS HOTEL. 

I am again in the vortex of that cosmopolitan citj, 
which is an epitome of every nation and tongue un- 
der the sun. And the Saint Nicholas is an epitome 
of New York. No other hotel so truly represents 
the ever- varying features of New York life. Here 
the gallant and chivalric southerner may be seen, 
full of the proud dignity of his clime ; and not far 
off, the calculating Yankee, shrewdly cogitating 
upon stocks or merchandise. Over all, however, 
this palatial caravansery spreads its wings like a 
bird of beautiful plumage, shielding all from storm 
and rain, and feeding the inner man with those lux- 
uries which make the heart glad. There is only 
one New York, and only one Saint Nicholas. Ease, 
comfort, luxury, and home are combined with ori- 
ental magnificence ; and it is no wonder that thou- 
sands annually throng its halls and corridors, and 
partake of its generous hospitality. 







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